


pandora's box

by thatfangirlingfreak



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Angst, Cigarettes, Enemies to Lovers, Lack of Communication, M/M, Slow Burn, Suh Youngho | Johnny-centric, Therapy, johnjae are Going Through It, lots of melodrama and feelings, lots of metaphors, what if johnny...wasn't confident?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25645291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfangirlingfreak/pseuds/thatfangirlingfreak
Summary: Johnny is certain he hates Jaehyun the moment he steps into the office. Hates his stupid, perfect hair, his dimpled smile, the way he always seems to be next to him. He hates it...only maybe he doesn't.Or: Johnny is convinced that Jaehyun is the worst, but the more he gets to know his co-worker, the deeper he falls for him.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Qian Kun, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Park Sooyoung | Joy/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 54
Kudos: 227





	1. the dream that feels like a lie

**Author's Note:**

> okay buckle in this is abt to be a wild, emotional rollercoaster
> 
> I wanted to write a rlly dramatic piece, hence the enemies to lovers trope lmao + I thought it'd be interesting to portray a Johnny that lacked confidence, which is obviously ooc for him. anyways, this fic is basically my baby bc I touch on a lot of personally meaningful themes here, pls treat her gently!!
> 
> special thanks to my beta for this, anais ([sianadessine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sianadessine/pseuds/sianadessine))!! literally I would not have finished this without her encouragement and unwavering support! ILYSM!!
> 
> now without further ado: johnjae hrs

“Dude, isn’t that new guy supposed to come in today?”

Johnny looks up to see Mark, or at least Mark’s forehead and eyes, peeking over the cubicle wall that separated their designated work spaces.

“Uh, I don’t know,” he clicks out of the spreadsheet he has open. His sales numbers were still low, but the month wasn’t over yet. “I zoned out during the last meeting.”

“Daydreaming about a certain someone?” Mark waggles his eyebrows.

Johnny rolls his eyes and glares up at him. “My last real date happened three months ago. You’d know if there was anyone to daydream about.”

“Alright, sorry you’re lonely,” he quips. “Anyways, what do you think he’ll be like? I heard he left a job at Apple’s marketing team to come here. You’ve got to be, like, insane to do that."  
  
“Did Jungwoo start some baseless rumors again?” Johnny asks, knowing his gullible best friend better than he knew himself. “What did I tell you about listening to water cooler gossip?”

Mark sighs. “‘Never listen to what Jungwoo and his old lady friends from Human Resources say.’ Yeah, yeah, I get it!”

“Clearly, you don’t.”

“Listen, you can’t blame me for being curi—oh shit, I think that’s him!” Mark’s voice switches from its usual overly excited tone to a more hushed one as he looks somewhere over Johnny’s shoulder, wide-eyed.

Johnny swivels around in his chair to see a relatively tall man in a nicely tailored suit walking in behind their boss, Kun, carrying a small cardboard box in his hands. He looks professional, even from the way he carries himself.

“Hyung,” Mark whispers with urgency, “dude, he’s coming this way!”

They both scramble to properly position themselves behind their desks, sitting up in the stick straight position reserved solely for when Kun made his rounds around the office. Johnny clicks open the embarrassing sales spreadsheet he’d minimized, and clicks at random cells to act like he was doing something of importance.

He contemplates drafting a random email to really play it up, but before he can log into his work email, he’s startled by the sound of a throat clearing.

Johnny spins to face Kun, who’s smiling in a way that’s bright, yet somehow still menacing, the new guy standing at his side.

“John,” his boss starts in his ‘I know you’re not doing shit’ voice, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything. I just wanted to introduce you to Jaehyun. He’ll be taking that cubicle next to you.”

There’d been a notoriously empty cubicle space next to Johnny that, in his four years of working for Neo, had never been occupied. He and Mark occasionally used it for dumb shit, like hiding behind it to scare each other, or trying to see if they could get a paper airplane to land perfectly in the center of the desk in there.

Now, the space was suddenly going to be filled by this new guy. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but he tried not to let his vague disappointment show. It was weird that he had an attachment to having that empty cubicle anyways, so perhaps it’s for the best that someone would actually work there.

“Jaehyun, this is John Suh,” Kun introduces. “He works in the sales department. Or rather, hardly works.”

Johnny tries to remain civil, in spite of his boss’s blatant insult. “You can just call me Johnny. I do, in fact, work in sales.”

“That remains to be seen, Mr. Suh,” Kun mutters, just loud enough for the new guy to hear.

“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” Jaehyun replies with a small smile, attempting to be polite.

“And I’m Mark!” His best friend pokes his head from around the corner, eager grin on his face, because he could never read the room. “Mark Lee. Just by the way.”

“Ah, yes,” Kun replies, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world, “Mark is here as well. He works in marketing, so you’ll probably be working together quite a bit.”

“That’s me, Mark from marketing,” the younger man laughs, even though no one else does. “If you have any questions or anything, feel free to come to me, man.”

“Right, well, I’ll let you get settled in now,” Kun says to Jaehyun. “And if you have any questions that these two cannot answer, do not hesitate to find me.”

Jaehyun nods and Kun leaves briskly, as he so often did whenever he left Johnny and Mark’s designated office corner. Which left the duo staring up at the brand new addition to the office, silence hanging awkward and heavy between them.

“Sorry, just curious,” Mark speaks up first. “Is it true? Did you really work for Apple’s marketing team?”

“Mark,” Johnny warns, partly because he didn’t want Mark to contribute to the embarrassment Kun had already given him, and partly because he didn’t want to know the answer. He doesn’t want to know that he’s been embarrassed in front of a former employee of one of the largest tech companies in the world.

Jaehyun laughs at that, a deep and bright thing that moves his whole chest, which Johnny was certainly not expecting. “It’s fine, I don’t mind. Yeah, I worked for them.”

Great, Johnny thinks. Just fantastic. His worst nightmare, confirmed.

Mark’s eyes widen. “Whoa. And you left?”

“Needed a change. So here I am.” Their new co-worker shrugs, and the action causes the box to slip from his grasp.

It falls with a loud clunk onto Johnny’s foot.

Johnny winces at the sudden throb spreading from his toes to his ankle.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Jaehyun says, reaching down to pick up his stupid box. “My bad. Are you okay?”

“It’s fine,” Johnny grits out. He could still move his toes, so that was a good sign. Who the hell brought that many objects to the office? On the first day, too. Who even put more than a few picture frames in their desk space?

“We all make mistakes on day one,” Mark smiles reassuringly up at Jaehyun, and Johnny suddenly wishes a box would fall on his friend’s foot.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun apologizes to him again. “I’ll try not to make any more. Mistakes, that is.”

Johnny grunts in response, and turns back to his sad excuse of a spreadsheet as the new guy places his dumb, heavy box on his desk, and fills the empty space Johnny had been so accustomed to.

He tries to forgive and forget and focus on his work, and stop imagining a box falling from the sky on top of Jaehyun’s perfect head of hair.

(Not that he thought the guy was perfect. He could’ve broken Johnny’s toes. He was a walking disaster. Just because he might’ve worked at a better tech company before this and walked around like a god didn’t negate that fact. Just because the boss he had for four years probably thought he was better than him didn’t mean shit.)

Johnny resumes his work, and tries not to glare at the back of Jaehyun’s head.

—

The next day, on the walking dis— _Jaehyun’s_ —first real day on the job, Kun calls them in for a meeting.

Johnny is surprised to spot Jaehyun seated at the long brown table alongside Mark and Taeyong, another member of the marketing division, chatting away with them like it was natural.

He tries not to question their boss’s reasoning for bringing in a newbie to a meeting of mostly long-term staff, and opens up the manilla folder of documents in front of him. 

He’s really doing his best not to eavesdrop, but he can’t help but glance up whenever Mark giggles too loudly at something apparently hilarious that Jaehyun’s said. Even Taeyong would react, which was odd. The man only lit up around a select few people at the office, namely a certain Kim Doyoung in the HR department, but that was neither here nor there.

But Jaehyun had come in and…changed things.

“Good morning everyone,” Kun greets, standing at the front of the room, saving Johnny from his failed attempt to distract himself with the folder. “I just wanted to call you all here for a brief meeting to discuss last month’s progress and our outline for the upcoming month.”

Ten, Kun’s assistant, clicks open a slideshow with a line graph that charted the branch’s progression. Johnny comically gulps when he sees the decline in the sales chart. Fuck.

“Firstly, regarding the past month—numbers across the board have been down.” Kun gives him a pointed look as he says it. Double fuck. “If we cannot get this up before the upcoming launch, the company head could show up. She may even require that I make staffing changes should we not be able to reverse this.”

Johnny meets Mark’s eyes across the table, and mouths ‘I’m dead.’ Mark shakes his head gently to reassure him, but Johnny’s not paying attention to that.

Instead, he notices the snort and upturned lips of the newbie, Jung Jaehyun. Who was clearly amused by Johnny’s panic.

Who did this guy think he was?

“…This is why I have brought in a new Chief of Marketing,” Kun is saying when Johnny tunes back in. He sweeps an arm forward to gesture at someone down the table. “Everyone, this is Jung Jaehyun, former Marketing Director at Apple. I have promoted him to this new position in place of our former CMO because I truly believe his work will improve the branch. So please, get acquainted with him.”

The room erupts into applause for him for no apparent reason, but it makes Jaehyun positively beam—the arrogant bastard.

Johnny rolls his eyes; he doesn’t even move his hands to clap.

“Now, let’s go over the data for…”

He can’t help but zone out, staring down at the glaring, red downward arrow on the printed out sales chart in the folder before him. Johnny stares and stares, thinking about how he felt like he was at absolute rock bottom; whereas the brand new, shiny Jung Jaehyun was at the peak of his arrow.

The man hadn’t even been here for a full day, and he was already chief of his department, already achieving one of Johnny’s dreams, already successful and earning praise and making their co-workers warm up to him.

It made Johnny’s stomach turn. Was it too late to call in sick?

When the meeting finally ends, he stands up slowly just in case. He’d hate to throw up over the nicely printed documents Ten had worked so hard on.

As per usual with these things, Mark waits for Johnny by the door so they can exit together. Only this time, Jaehyun is standing with him as well. Perfect.

“Johnny, hey,” Jaehyun greets first, unfortunately. “Sorry about yesterday again. Hopefully I don’t step on your toes today, or drop anything on them.”

Johnny attempts to smile. “Yeah, no worries."

“Hey, you good, dude?” Mark asks, brow furrowed with concern. “You’re not looking too hot.”

“Just peachy,” Johnny lies, tucking the manilla folder under his arm and wondering if, for once, he should put his long legs to use and speed walk the fuck away. He doesn’t even look Jaehyun’s way, too busy fuming. The guy _snorted_ at his misery. Asshole.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep,” he huffs.

“Maybe you could use some coffee,” the asshole pipes up, and Johnny fights the urge to roll his eyes.

Instead, he picks up his pace slightly. “I have a Thermos waiting for me on my desk, thanks.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun has the audacity to continue. “Well, Taeyong mentioned something about a stomach bug going around. Are you sure you’re not feeling ill?”

“I’m fine,” Johnny replies, walks even faster.

“Dude, I don’t know, you seem…off,” Mark says.

“If you’re not feeling well, Mark and I can tell Kun. We’ll cover for you, maybe he’ll let us take your sales work and—“

The idea of Jaehyun, not-even-a-day-into-this-job Jaehyun, taking over his work and stealing his job sets him off.

“Look, I said I was fine and I meant it,” Johnny stops in his tracks, turning around abruptly and staring the two marketing employees down. “Drop it.”

He walks away as briskly as their boss would, and makes it back to the cubicle first. He wonders if shredding the sales graph would make him feel better, though deep down he knew it wouldn’t fix anything at all.

Mark and Jaehyun join him several minutes later, and luckily, don’t say anything to him.

He didn’t mean to snap, he really didn’t.

It’s just that Johnny has always been relatively good. As a child, everyone called him an obedient kid. He was a stellar student from primary school all through university. At his internships, he was a hard worker. He was good.

And when he made his first big leap in adulthood, moving from Chicago to South Korea to work for Neo, he thought this was it. This was his chance to be more than just good. He could be great. He’d told his mom over and over that this was his moment, the turning point in his life.

But here he was, four years in and…nowhere. He was not great, not even good. Johnny felt like he was nothing. Every year his sales continued to worsen, and sometimes, on the phone with his parents, he would wonder what the hell he was doing here if not being great. Wonder when the turning point would come.

All his wondering was slowly starting to eat away at him, and Johnny can’t help but snap because of it.

They work in silence for most of the day. 

Until, about an hour before work ends, guilt starts to eat away at him, too.

Johnny decides he doesn’t want to be an ass. He’s not an ass. He’s just frustrated and projecting. And even if he was kind of pissed at him, he doesn’t want Jaehyun’s first day to end like this because of him. He _can_ forgive the guy. He _can_ forget.

So, he caves.

“Sorry about this morning,” he speaks up, making both Mark and Jaehyun lift their heads in surprise. “I was just…upset about the numbers.”

“It’s okay,” Mark forgives him easily, like always. Grins warmly at him from around the cubicle wall, like always. “Don’t worry, hyung, we understand.”  
  
Jaehyun also smiles at him, at his left side. Johnny feels weird having to turn to the side to face him. It’s weird to have a presence next to him at all.

“Those numbers will be easy to get up, if you just keep working at it,” he says, like it was simple as that. “Sometimes there are just lull periods. If you just increase your effort, you can increase company profit in no time.”

Johnny does his best not to remark about how utterly condescending that sounded, and gives Jaehyun a vague smile that surely comes across as more of a grimace. “Thanks for the advice.”

“I’ve been there,” Jaehyun says, then turns back to his computer.

Johnny bites his tongue so as not to retort with something rude, and opens up his sales spreadsheet to add a new tab for the upcoming month. He types in the names of the investors he managed to coerce into buying stocks today, then leans back in his office chair.

Just one bad day, he thinks. It’s only one bad day. You can turn that arrow around.

—

One bad day turns into a bad week.

His sales remain relatively stagnant. The nice french press his mother bought for him breaks, forcing him to order a new one and deal with gross office coffee while he waits for it to come in. 

Oh, and Jaehyun had somehow found a way to annoy him every single day. From stealing his pens to ‘accidentally’ not grabbing him a soda from the vending machine despite getting one for Mark, he was sick of the younger man and his stupid face. Now, he constantly daydreams about boxes falling from the sky to save him from his personal hell.

Johnny mopes about how the universe surely has it out for him as he stares at the slow drip of cheap coffee pouring into his nice, shiny Thermos.

“Morning,” Jaehyun enters, grabbing one of the apples from the basket of fruit on the counter.

Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.

“Mornin’,” Johnny grumbles back, not in the mood for this conversation without caffeine to rely on for support. “Never thought anyone actually ate that fruit.”

Jaehyun shrugs, biting into the apple and chewing far too loudly for his liking. “Apple a day keeps the doctor away, and all that.”

“Uh huh,” he replies flatly.

“What brings you here?” Jaehyun asks. “I mean, I’ve only been working here for a week, but long enough to know you don’t get your coffee here.”

Johnny narrows his still sleep swollen eyes at him. “How do you know that?”

“I, um,” Jaehyun looks away, rolls the apple around in his hand. It’s weird. This guy is fucking weird, Johnny thinks. “I just come in here every morning, is all. And you’re never in here. Ever.”

He’s too drowsy to read into that, so he just nods, “Yeah, my usual coffee maker broke. So I’m stuck with this shit for the time being.”  


“Oh,” the newbie says. “How do you usually take your coffee?”

“I have a french press,” Johnny replies, finally filling his Thermos to the brim. “I make my own coffee with it.”

Jaehyun’s eyes widen in amazement, and Johnny almost feels smug for a moment. “Oh, that’s…wow. You really must like coffee.”

“Yep,” he takes a long, sweet sip. It tasted like ass, but it was better than nothing.

“I’m more of a wine fanatic myself.”

Johnny hums, takes another long sip so he doesn’t have to respond.

“I like reds the best. But really, anything with a sweet fragrance and notes of something fruity, and I’ll drink it.”

God, how pretentious could he get?

“Yeah. I don’t know a lot about wine,” is all he can come up with to say. Whatever, so Jaehyun got the upper hand on wine knowledge. Big deal.

“Oh? Well,” Jaehyun hesitates, shifts his weight visibly. “Maybe I could teach you about it sometime.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow at that. “Teach me. About wine?”

“Yeah…”

He scoffs; now the guy thought he was in need of drinking lessons. “I’m not an idiot.”

“O-oh…I just t—“

“I know how to drink,” Johnny grumbles, pointedly swallowing down a large gulp of coffee before exiting the break room.

Jaehyun doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the morning, which is just fine with Johnny. How dare he constantly try to belittle him?

When the younger man leaves for the vending machine, Johnny feels like he can set aside his burning hatred and finally breathe. That is, until Mark pokes his head around the cubicle wall.

“So, it’s been a week,” his best friend whispers. “What do you think of Jaehyun? Verdict?”

Johnny clicks open an email from a potential client he was still trying to butter up. “He’s kind of weird, I guess.”

Even from the corner of his eye, Johnny can see the way Mark’s face contorts with confusion. “What? You think he’s weird?”

“Yeah, I mean,” he says, exasperation edging into his tone, “who actually eats the fruit in the break room?”

Mark sighs. “C’mon, be serious, hyung. Do you like him?”

Johnny narrows his eyes, still staring at his cursor. “What is this, fifth grade?”

“Not like that. I was thinking the three of us should go out drinking or something,” he suggests. “We could invite Taeyong. Maybe your friend from sales, Taeil? Could be fun.”

“Absolutely not,” Johnny scoffs.

Mark cocks his head to the side like an annoying puppy with his nose stuck in Johnny’s business. “Why? You really don’t like him?”

“It’s not that,” Johnny lies, not wanting to let down Mark. The kid was like a little brother to him, and he had a hard time disappointing him and his bright, hopeful eyes. He’d be disappointed to know he didn’t like Jaehyun, especially since the two appeared to have gotten along so well. 

“I just…don’t know him. You know I have a difficult time with new people.”  


“Right,” Mark starts, “but going out could help you get to know him! It’ll be fun.”

“I can’t really do fun at the moment, I’m pretty busy.”

“But it’s been forever since we’ve been able to go out and hang out together,” Mark pouts. “Plus, you’d like Jaehyun if you just got to know him. And Jeno invited us to get drinks with them at this sweet club on 7th—”

“Mark,” he cuts him off, looking at the younger boy now instead of his computer screen. “I have got to focus on getting my sales up right now. I cannot lose this job. You know that, right?”

He frowns, but backs away slowly. “Yeah, I get it. Just thought I would offer. Sorry.”

“Mark…”

Just then, Jaehyun returns and slides back into his spot next to him. “Hope you guys didn’t want anything.”

“Nah,” Mark shakes his head, smiling like Johnny hadn’t just snapped at him. “Hey, hyung, what are you doing Friday?”

“Oh, um,” Jaehyun pauses, and looks down at him for some reason. Johnny doesn’t know why Jaehyun looks at him, but he can feel his eyes crawling over him. He doesn’t appreciate it. “Nothing, why?”  


“One of the interns invited us for drinks. You in?”

“Sure, sounds good,” Jaehyun beams, and Johnny makes it a point to type louder.

“Cool,” Mark grins back.

He and Mark don’t really talk much at all for the rest of the week, another result of the universe’s agenda against him. It blows. A lot. Especially since he was forced to watch his best friend laugh it up with the very guy he was growing to hate.

On Friday, Mark extends the olive branch first.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he singsongs, little head peeking over the cubicle wall.  


Johnny musters up the best smile he could give, having just opened yet another failed sales email. “Try not to have too much fun without me.”

Mark sighs, then mutters under his breath, “Try not to kill yourself with work.”

And really, Johnny’s at peace with his decision. He’s being responsible. He’s prioritizing his career, for once. It’s good. It’s wise.

Still, when Mark and Jaehyun come in on Monday morning, acting all buddy-buddy and whispering and giggling about whatever happened Friday night…

Johnny couldn’t help the way jealousy twinged in his chest, an ugly, green emotion.

“Dude, you missed the best night ever! Jae is, like, awesome at beer pong,” Mark tells him as soon as he walks up to their shared cubicle. “And did you know he used to live in Connecticut?”

“Really,” Johnny remarks flatly, taking off his messenger bag and setting it on his desk. Since when did Mark start calling Jaehyun ‘Jae’?  
  
Jaehyun smiles bashfully. “It was only four years…”  


“Still, kind of weird how the three of us are from North America,” Mark continues. “Or, well, lived there. And can speak English, are all Korean, live here now, work together…it’s like it was meant to be or something.”  


Meant to be, Johnny thinks, would laugh out loud at the notion if he could. They were clearly not meant to be.

There was no way, no fucking way he was meant to be with Jaehyun. The best friend stealing, dream position stealing, pen stealing, Jung Jaehyun.

He officially hates the guy. And that’s his final verdict.

—

“C’mon, just print,” Johnny mutters, pressing at the ‘PRINT’ button harder. “Work with me here, you bitch.”

“You need help with that?”

One of the interns, Jeno, if he remembers correctly, is standing behind him with a stack of papers in hand and a kind smile on his face. For some reason, though, Johnny’s just not in the mood for kindness.

“No, it’s—” he presses his lips together. “I’m fine. I’ve got this under control.”

“Okay,” Jeno chirps, beginning to staple some of the papers together. “You know, you missed out on a great night last week!”

How could the printer at a tech company suck ass so much? “Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

“It’s a shame, I’m sure you would’ve enjoyed yourself.”

“Such a shame,” he replies on autopilot, squinting at the button that’s now blinking at him.

Jeno taps the papers against the nearby table, making sure they’re perfectly aligned. “Yeah, I think Mark and Jaehyun missed you the most. They really wanted you to be there.”

That catches Johnny’s attention.

“Jaehyun?” he scoffs. “Yeah, sure. The guy barely says two words to me.”  
  
“He asked Mark if you were coming twice. And then, he wanted to know why you weren’t showing up,” Jeno raises his eyebrows. “Something going on there?”

Johnny doesn’t know how to process that, so he just mutters, “Hell no. Just…staple your papers, Jeno.”

The intern laughs heartily, then picks up his stapled stack of papers and turns to leave. “Whatever you say, hyung. You should show up next time, though. Wouldn’t want anyone to miss you too much.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Johnny says to himself once Jeno leaves, pressing the blinking button repeatedly in hopes that the printer will fix itself. “He probably just wanted me to show up to make him look better. I look like an idiot next to him. I’m the guy that can’t even make a sale. Or work the printer.”

The frustration catches up to him, and he slaps at the side of the giant machine in a futile attempt to make it work. “This motherfucking printer!”

“Johnny?”

He whips around to find, of course, Jaehyun. He looks half-amused, half-concerned, and it’s annoying.

“Having problems with the printer?”

“What does it look like,” Johnny huffs, not in the mood for even attempting to be civil with the guy. “I’m talking to the damned thing.”

Jaehyun approaches the printer, leaning over Johnny’s arm to inspect it. His breath is landing on his arm and he’s radiating with heat. It’s so, so annoying.

“Oh, look,” Jaehyun says, tapping at the little digital screen on the thing. The printer makes a normal printer noise, and the paper he needed comes out perfectly fine. “That was all you had to do.”  


Johnny hastily swipes his paper off the printer tray. Jaehyun probably thought he was an idiot for not knowing how to do that. He probably thought he was incompetent; he was selling technology to people, and he couldn’t even fix the printer.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, eyes trained on his paper instead of his co-worker.

“It’s no problem,” Jaehyun smiles up at him, then goes to start his own print job. “Hey, by the way…why didn’t you come out with us last week?”

Johnny hadn’t been expecting Jaehyun to ask him that. And why did everyone suddenly care if he was hanging out with them or not? Surely, his presence wasn’t that important.

“Oh, uh,” he searches for an excuse that’s not ‘I’m tanking at my job, so I have to work a million times harder to keep it.’ “Work stuff.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun presses his lips together in thought. “Is that it? I mean, I thought for sure it was because…well, never mind. Work stuff. Happens to the best of us, am I right?”  


Or the worst of us, Johnny corrects, mentally. “Yeah.”

“Cool,” Jaehyun nods. “Or, not cool. Being busy sucks.”

“It does. Uh,” he needs to escape this uncomfortable conversation fast, “I gotta run this up to Yuta. Thanks for, y’know, the printer.”

“Oh, yeah, no,” Jaehyun waves his hands too much. “Anyone could’ve done what I did. It wasn’t a big deal. It was easy.”

Johnny feels his eye physically twitch at that comment. Of course, the asshole would never miss an opportunity to get on his high horse.

“Right,” he fake smiles. “See you back at the cubicle.”

Johnny takes more time than he needs to talking to Yuta, simply so he doesn’t have to go back to sitting next to Jaehyun for two more full hours. He can’t believe he ever _thanked_ him.

He fucking hates printers. Almost as much as he hates Jaehyun. Almost.

—

Ever since Jaehyun had begun working at Neo, Johnny had done his very best to avoid him during the best part of the work day:

Lunch.

It’s been about three weeks since the newbie had come in, three weeks since he’d last had lunch with Mark.

Before Jaehyun showed up, he and Mark would spend their lunches happily chomping away on sandwiches or leftover pizza slices or cheap salads from some place down the street. Mark would share whatever gossip he’d overheard that day, and Johnny would make jokes about basically everyone in the office. Or, they’d talk about weird news events, life in North America, stupid Instagram posts…anything and everything, really. It was a nice mental break for them.

But that had been before Jaehyun.

Now, he waits for Mark and Jaehyun to leave for lunch without him, spitting out excuses to Mark like ‘I have a sales meeting, sorry’ or ‘I had a big breakfast’ so that the younger boy leaves him alone, then promptly finds Yuta or Taeil and eats with one of them.

So far, the whole arrangement had been working out perfectly for Johnny. He missed his time with Mark, of course, but he succeeded in avoiding Jaehyun and that was what mattered. Or at least, that’s what he tries to tell himself every time his cubicle mates return from lunch giggling about their latest inside joke.

He already has his excuse for today memorized, when Mark throws a ball of paper at his head.

“Lunch?” he asks, peeking around to look at Johnny with a pout.

“Sorry,” Johnny sighs for show. “I told Yuta that I—“

“Yuta’s not in today,” Mark narrows his eyes at him. “He’s sick.”

Fuck. “He is?”

“Yep. So, does that mean you’re actually free for lunch?”

Johnny looks up at the ceiling. If he stares up at it hard enough, maybe it’ll get the hint and collapse on top of him.

“Yeah,” he sighs, for real this time. “I’m free.”

And so, he ends up seated right in between Mark and his least favorite person in the world.

They open up their respective lunch bags as Mark and Jaehyun discuss…whatever they’d been talking about in the elevator. Honestly, Johnny had zoned out the moment the three of them stood up to break for lunch.

“Hyung?”

Johnny blinks back to life when Mark speaks to him. “Hm, what? Sorry, didn’t hear you.”

“I said, nice of you to finally join us,” his best friend huffs, biting angrily into his sandwich.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, plunging his spoon into his yogurt instead of making eye contact, “I was free, so.”

“Sure,” he hears Mark mutter.

Jaehyun clears his throat. “You know, Mark’s told me a lot about the infamous, uh, lunches you guys have had together. I liked the peanut butter story.”

Johnny and Mark both snort at the mention of one of their best office pranks, involving their favorite clean freaks—Taeyong and Doyoung—and a single jar of peanut butter. It’d been pretty great, they both had to admit.

“You told him about that?” Johnny glances across the table, and spots the smile creeping onto Mark’s face.

“Well, yeah,” Mark looks up at him, smile widening. “It’s one of our greatest hits.”

“You’re right,” Johnny chuckles. He really did miss sitting at their usual table. He missed his best friend.

And though he resented Jaehyun—for forcing this wedge between him and his friend, for earning their boss’s praises without moving a muscle, for easily befriending their co-workers, for his stupid perfect hair, for being stupid, perfect, untouchable Jung Jaehyun—he would try. He would try for Mark.

It was just lunch, just an hour of the whole day, he reminded himself.

“Tell him about the time we stole Jungwoo’s lunch,” Mark says around a mouthful of sandwich.

Johnny stares across at him, eyes wide, and points to the bit of lettuce Mark’s spewed onto the table. “Oh, what’s this?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Mark grumbles in embarrassment as he uses his napkin to wipe it away.

Suddenly, there’s a noise next to him.

Jaehyun’s laughing, gasping for air, with his eyes crinkled shut and his nose scrunched. His chest is shaking, jostling the table slightly, and he’s pointing at Johnny.

“Your,” he gasps, finger in Johnny’s direction, “your face!”

He breaks off into another burst of laughter, and Johnny can’t help but let out a laugh of his own, watching the younger man chortle like that next to him.

“Shut up,” Mark groans. “I hate both of you.”

Jaehyun doesn’t stop laughing for two full minutes, and Johnny finds himself grinning through it all. When he realizes he’s smiling at the younger man, he nearly reaches up to slap himself out of it. It was probably just a reflex, a biological response to seeing someone else laugh and smile or whatever.

It was just lunch, he reminds himself again, before they toss their garbage away and return to business as usual.

Just lunch.

—

It’s a typical Thursday when Kun summons them to his office.

Johnny, Mark, and Jaehyun are at lunch discussing bizarre English terms, words, and grammar rules they remember from their younger years, when an intern walks up to their table.

“Uh, Mr. Suh, Mr. Jung?” he asks, voice quiet and rather nervous. “Mr. Qian is asking for the both of you. To come to his office, I mean.”

Johnny gives the kid a confused look, whereas Jaehyun smiles up at him politely.

“We’ll be right there, Xiaojun. Thanks,” he says gently.

“Okay,” the intern, Xiaojun, apparently, sighs in relief. “I’ll go…wait over there.”

They bid farewell to Mark and stand to throw away their trash, then follow behind Xiaojun as he leads them up to Kun’s office on the fifth floor.

“What’s this kid’s deal?” Johnny mutters, only talking to Jaehyun because he’s curious and he’s there and in the same boat as him. Not because he’s trying to be friendly to him.

“Oh, Xiaojun? He just started Monday,” Jaehyun replies. “He’s been nervous about the whole thing, but I hope he’ll adjust soon. He’s a sweet kid.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow at that. “And you know him…how, exactly?”

“We’ve…met. Once or twice,” Jaehyun appears to falter, which was extremely rare. Johnny soaks in the sight. “It’s not important.”

He opens his mouth to inquire further, but stops himself when he realizes that Jaehyun was right. This isn’t important. He shouldn’t give a fuck about how the guy he hates knows the young new intern, so he shouldn’t get curious.

“Whatever you say,” Johnny shrugs instead of following that thread. “Why do you think Kun wants both of us? I mean, we’re in two completely different departments.”

Jaehyun mimics his shrug. “I don’t know, marketing and sales kind of go hand in hand, don’t you think?”

They come to a halt in front of Kun’s office. Xiaojun knocks on the door once, gently, and directs a tight-lipped smile towards both of them as he waits for a response.

“Come in,” calls their boss.

Johnny takes a deep breath before they cross over into hell. Ironically, the only thing reassuring him at the moment was the fact that Jaehyun was with him—there’s no way Kun could be firing him if he’s being accompanied by Neo’s star employee.

“John, Jaehyun,” Kun says, shaking their hands before gesturing to the plush chairs in front of his desk. “Please, take a seat.”

“I’m sure you’re both curious as to why I called you here today,” he starts, getting straight to the point. Typical Kun. “I’m assigning you both to a project.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “A project?”

“Yes, Mr. Suh. A project,” Kun replies. “Neo is holding a companywide ad contest. I need you both to work together to create a presentation to help promote the next model in the NCT tech line, using mockup posters, some sort of slogan…whatever. I have the details for you. Whichever branch has the best presentation, wins.”

“Wins…what exactly?”

Kun stares Johnny down. “Wins the chance to have their work used by the company’s advertising team. Your work would be shown everywhere during the device’s promotional period. You’d both be recognized by the president of Neo and given a cash prize. You’d get the chance to represent our entire branch. Is that a good enough prize for you, Mr. Suh?”

“Of course, sir,” he murmurs.

Jaehyun straightens up in the seat next to him, reminding Johnny of the teacher’s pets he despised in high school. “Do you have any guidelines for the project, sir? A due date, perhaps?”

Kun pulls open his file cabinet and takes out a folder that’s thick with papers, which he promptly hands over to Jaehyun. Not Johnny.

“This should tell you everything you need to know. However, if you have any questions even after reviewing the information, you may come to me.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jaehyun smiles.

Their boss clasps his hands together, and looks between them. “Alright, well, if neither of you have any questions at the moment…”

Johnny holds up a hand. “I have a question, actually.”

He swears Kun rolls his eyes. “Go ahead, Mr. Suh.”

“Why…us?” he gestures between him and Jaehyun. “I mean, I understand Jaehyun and his whole marketing whatever. But me? Why not Mark or Taeyong? Someone with more experience in advertising?”

Their boss stands to his full height, inhales deeply. “Mr. Jung, would you please exit the room? I need to speak to Mr. Suh alone.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun’s eyes widen. “Um, certainly, sir.”

Johnny’s mind reels as Jaehyun exits the room. The door lets out a heavy thud once he leaves, and Johnny almost misses him for a moment. Almost wants to call for Jaehyun to come back.

Almost.

“Do you know why I haven’t fired you yet, Mr. Suh?”

What a great start. “Because you can see that I have potential?” Johnny tries.

Kun laughs, genuinely laughs. It doesn’t feel good. “You’re a funny man, John. It’s a shame, you would’ve made a fantastic comedian.”

And Johnny wishes he was a comedian, a street performer, a circus ringleader, anything other than the guy sitting in his boss’s office waiting to get chewed out.

“I haven’t fired you yet because, although you may not believe it, I am a good person. I believe in second chances,” Kun looks down at him. “And right now, I am handing you a second chance.”

“This is my second chance?” he asks. “The project?”

“I want you to win this for the branch. I want you to win this for yourself,” Kun says. “Prove to me, to everyone, to yourself that you can be passionate about something and work hard and achieve something great. I think this is an opportunity for you, and that is why I chose you. I think it could be good for you. And if you do this, then maybe I won’t fire you.”

“So, you’re saying…if I win, I can keep my job?”

“Always with the selective hearing, John,” Kun chuckles, shaking his head. “Yes, I want you to win. But you can only keep your job if you can win _and_ make those sales numbers increase. That’s the deal.”

“But sir, I…” Johnny huffs, already feeling the pressure. “I’m a sales guy. It’s all I know. I don’t…how can I win without any experience in marketing and ads?”

“That’s why I partnered you up with someone who is the best,” Kun explains. “Jaehyun is a good employee. Not only is he smart, but he is also kind. He’ll help you.”

Johnny can’t believe that, even in one-on-one meetings with his boss, he has to hear about Jaehyun’s glory. 

“Right,” he sighs.

“Together you can win this thing. I think you’ll make a great team.”

“Sure.”

“Marketing and sales go hand in hand,” Kun quips suddenly, and Johnny feels the urge to scream. “I think you’ll find it’s not as much of a mountain as you’re making it out to be. And who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something from working with Jaehyun to help you in your sales.”

Him? Learning from Jaehyun? Johnny nearly laughs in Kun’s face.

“Well, I’ll try to do my best to win this, sir,” Johnny says, standing to leave. “Try to keep my job, at least.”

Before he can make it to the door, Kun calls out for him.

“Yes, sir?”

He turns around to face his boss, who’s considering him thoughtfully.

“Don’t take your second chance for granted, Suh. Fight for this thing, okay?”

Johnny simply nods, hand on the doorknob, and Kun gives him a real smile as he leaves. He’s not sure Kun’s ever smiled at him in all his years working here.

And yet, he does not leave the office feeling optimistic about his future.

Because how is he supposed to win against all the other Neo branches’ teams? In his mind, he imagines his competitors as a bunch of Jaehyuns multiplied, all talented and formidable creatures. Meanwhile, he was just the sales worker.

A sales worker who couldn’t even make sales. Another dilemma to add to Kun’s second chance deal.

Things weren’t looking so great in the world of Johnny Suh, needless to say.

He exits the office, and presses his back against the door, sighing. He looks up at the bright fluorescent light in the ceiling, willing it to provide him with some guidance.

“What happened?”

Johnny startles, hand splayed over his chest in shock. “Jaehyun, what the fuck?”

“Sorry,” Jaehyun mutters sheepishly. “I waited out here for you, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine,” he tries not to think about how nice it was to be waited on. “Well, not really. I’m screwed.”

Jaehyun frowns as he watches Johnny run a hand through his hair, distressed. “What do you mean?”

“Essentially,” Johnny sighs, “I have to win this stupid contest so I can keep my job. That’s how much of a shit salesman I am, apparently. I have to win an advertising contest to keep doing sales. Oh, and I have to increase my sales numbers too. At the same time. It’s fantastic.”

“We.”

Johnny blinks down at Jaehyun. “What?”

“We have to win this,” Jaehyun corrects. “We will win this. I really think we can do this, Johnny, you and I. Don’t sell yourself short when we haven’t even started.”

His certainty is…admirable, Johnny thinks. Naive, but admirable.

“Uh, I hope you’re not expecting me to somehow be a secret advertising, marketing genius. Because I’m not. I’m totally out of my element here,” he admits.

Jaehyun bats at his arm gently. “Hey, it doesn’t take a genius. It just takes faith. If you believe…”

“You can do anything?” Johnny finishes.

“Exactly,” the younger man smiles up at him, then lifts up the folder he still has in hand. “Now come on, let’s get started. You’re not losing your job, not on my watch.”

Johnny finds himself smiling at Jaehyun’s words, and for once, he just lets himself. Doesn’t scold himself for it, just…lets it be.

Maybe they would make an okay team after all.

—

He was wrong. They’re a terrible team.

“No, Johnny. That’s wrong, the guidelines clearly state—”

“I just think that if we do it like this—”

“That’s ridiculous, come on. Be real—”

“I am! You’re the one not listenin—”

“I’ve listened to all your idiotic ideas for the past—”

“Okay!” Mark claps his hands, right in front of Johnny and Jaehyun’s faces. “That’s enough!”

He and Jaehyun wince at the loud, resonating sound and both scowl up at their friend, who’s glaring down at them.

“I have had to listen to the two of you bicker like an old married couple,” Jaehyun looks away, and Johnny notes the hint of red on his earlobes, “for the past two hours. It’s getting on my damn nerves, so you better tell me that you’ve at least made some progress before I…I don’t know! Just tell me some good came out of this shit.”

Johnny traps his bottom lip in between his teeth, glancing at Jaehyun nervously. The younger man’s eyes dart to meet his for a split second, before he trains them on Mark.

“We, uh, we’re working on it. We’ll try to keep it down,” Jaehyun says softly. “Sorry, Mark.”

Mark pinches the bridge of his nose. “You haven’t made any progress, have you?”

“No,” they murmur, eyes trained to the floor.

The Canadian sighs. “Figures.”

“We might be able to,” Johnny picks at the cuticle of his middle finger, “if Jaehyun would actually listen to what I was saying.”

Jaehyun sucks in a breath. “Well, maybe if Johnny could accept my feedback on his ideas for once…”

“Feedback?” he scoffs. “That was all criticism, and you know it.”

“Johnny, I’m the one who’s done this before,” Jaehyun counters. “I do this for a living, you don’t. I know what the hell I’m talking about, so you should be listening to me.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Just admit that you don’t listen to me because you don’t think I can do this. You think I’m just as incompetent as Kun does, as everyone does!”

“What?” Jaehyun frowns. “I don’t thin—”

“Don’t tell me you don’t think that,” he jabs a finger in Jaehyun’s direction. “I know you do. I’ve seen you.”

“Seen me? Johnny, what are you talking about?”

“Your first day,” he recounts. “In the meeting, when the drop in sales was brought up. Kun stared me down, and when I went to look at Mark, I saw. I saw you fucking laugh at me.”

Jaehyun gapes in shock. The shock of being caught, he thinks.

“I never laughed at you, I swear. I wouldn’t do that,” Jaehyun looks to Mark for help. “Tell him I wouldn’t.”

Mark’s mouth screws up in thought. “Hyung, I think maybe you just misunderstood what you saw…”

“Seriously, Mark?! You’re defending him over me?” Johnny snaps, standing now, towering over both his co-workers.

“You’re overreacting, dude,” he tries to soothe, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Johnny shoves at Mark’s arm. “Fuck you. You, of all people, should know why this is a big deal for me.”

“Hyung, I get it,” Mark insists, “I do, but you’re being unreasonable to Jaehyun.”

“You don’t get it, though,” he shakes his head. “You don’t. But whatever, I don’t need to explain myself to you. Just take his side, since clearly I’m the unreasonable one. I’m just stupid, dumb, irrational Johnny, right? It doesn’t matter what I think, anyway.”

He doesn’t wait to hear Mark protest, or Jaehyun try to explain himself. Johnny just turns, and marches away.

After walking up nine flights of stairs, running off the adrenaline of anger alone, Johnny finds himself on the fourteenth floor. He wanders around the office space there aimlessly, until he stumbles upon an empty hallway, and sinks to the floor.

Deep down, he knows he should be listening to Jaehyun and stop being so stubborn. Stop being the sensitive boy he’s been his whole life. Stop acting like he knew everything. 

Yet, he can’t help but take Jaehyun’s comments to heart.

It’s hard for him not to feel inadequate, working for a massive tech company like this.

Sure, he’d been smart and breezed through school when he was younger. And in those days, he was certain he’d been destined for a great future.

But now, living in his future, he thinks sometimes that maybe he wasn’t cut out for it after all. He wasn’t like Jaehyun, he didn’t rise to the top wherever he was or impress anyone straight out the gate. He wasn’t like Mark, enthusiastic about his work even on bad days. Even the interns seemed to be better at their jobs than him.

He’s Johnny. He’s idealistic and can’t live up to his own expectations. He feels setbacks, really _feels_ them, and they hurt. He doesn’t like to disappoint himself, nor the inner child inside of him asking ‘are we going to make it?’ every time he screws up. He doesn’t like feeling foolish, doesn’t like being told that his thoughts are wrong.

And these things, these flaws—they make him feel like a failure.

Johnny buries his head into his hands, and wonders for the millionth time if he’ll ever make it in this lifetime.

“Johnny, there you are.”

He doesn’t even bother lifting his head as footsteps approach him.

“Go away, Jaehyun.”

He feels the younger man’s heat at his side when he sits next to him.

“Mark’s on the lower floors searching for you,” Jaehyun pants. “I should text him.”

“Don’t,” Johnny mutters into his hands. “You should just go find him and head back to the office together. I’ll be fine, I just…need a minute.”

Jaehyun pauses for a beat, then says, “I never laughed at you. I swear.”

“Jaehyun,” he starts, lifting his head to face him.

His co-worker shakes his head. “I never laughed. Maybe at something Taeyong said, but not at you. I would never do that. Please just…trust me, I wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” Johnny replies, even though anger still lingers in his chest. He shoves it away as he says, “I trust you.”

“And I’m not,” Jaehyun glances upwards, searching for the words, “I’m not trying to be critical of you. I’m just…good at this. I know this.”

“I know.”

Jaehyun purses his lips. “It’s just that you keep treating my comments like they’re personal attacks. I’ve got nothing against you, Johnny.”

Part of him wonders if that’s actually the truth, whereas the other part feels guilty for having his own personal vendetta against someone who apparently has nothing against him.

“You should,” Johnny shrugs. “You will, when I fuck up this project for us.”

“Johnny, what?” Jaehyun frowns. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You can’t know that!” he exclaims. “My job is on the line here, it’s not like some…fun bonus thing. It’s not a game, Jaehyun, do you understand that?”

“I do.”

Johnny laughs dryly. “But you don’t. Your future here is set in stone. Kun loves you and you’re already in a top position in your field. You’re set. You’re already successful, and you’re two years younger than I am.”

“Me, on the other hand?” he continues, gesturing to himself. “I’m just waiting for the day I get called in and get fired. Sometimes, when I call my mother, I think about giving up and buying a one-way ticket back to Chicago. I think about it a lot.”

Jaehyun puts his hand on his knee, carefully, like he’s afraid he’ll break him.

“Johnny, you’re not bad at your job. You’re talented. I know I haven’t been here long, but I think even a stranger could see that you’re one of the most hardworking employees here,” the younger man says with conviction. 

Conviction that he shouldn’t have, that no one should have for him.

“Do you know how many sales I made this week?” he asks, looking Jaehyun in the eyes. “One. Exactly one, to a woman who promised to buy stocks so long as I stopped spamming her inbox.”

Jaehyun’s hand slowly slides off his knee.

“So you see?” He twists his mouth up into a sad smile. “I’m not talented. I’m nothing, dude. I’m a fuckup who landed a position I was never supposed to have, and this all just proves it. When we lose this thing, I’m done. It’s over. I’m gone.”

Silence sits with them in the hallway. The empty, desolate hallway—save for the office’s success story and its biggest failure.

After a beat, Jaehyun murmurs, “Stop saying that.”

He eyes Jaehyun curiously. “What?”

“Stop fucking saying,” Jaehyun inhales deeply, “that we’ll lose. Not when we haven’t even tried. We just got started, and you’re already giving up.”

“But—”

“No,” Jaehyun cuts him off. “This is your problem, you choose to give up before you even give yourself a chance. Just because you had a bad day? A bad sales track record? That’s bullshit, Johnny.

“I know we don’t know each other well. I know you may not like me very much, for supposedly laughing at you or being too critical or whatever,” he continues. “But I will not watch you give up on yourself. I won’t let you leave me to execute this project by myself.”

Johnny stares at him, then admits, “I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to fail again. I’m just…tired of failing.”

“Hey, I didn’t get to where I am today without failing,” Jaehyun shrugs. “Everyone fails, Johnny. But you have to choose to pick yourself back up after the failures, and want to choose success. You need to believe that you can succeed again, in spite of the failures. That’s how you win.”

He nods, drinking in the words. When Jaehyun puts it like that, it makes sense. He almost feels…inspired.

It’s been a long time since he’s felt that spark of _something_ inside him.

“I know I’ve kind of made an ass of myself today,” Johnny starts, “but do you still trust me to work on this project?”

Jaehyun knocks his shoulder against his. “C’mon, I just gave you a whole pep talk. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t want you to work on this with me.”

“Good,” he smiles a genuine Johnny smile. “‘Cause I think I might have an idea. An actually decent idea.”

“Well,” Jaehyun smiles back. “Let’s hear it then.”  


And as they sit in the hallway, finally discussing a real plan, a solid outline for this project instead of arguing about it, Johnny feels his hatred for Jaehyun begin to ebb away.

Perhaps they were an okay team after all. Maybe even more than okay.

Maybe they could be great.

—

“I think if we put the design element here,” Jaehyun suggests, leaning over Johnny’s arm to point at the document on Johnny’s computer, “it’ll look clean. The minimalistic style is more eye-catching and it corresponds with the theme.”

Johnny nods and inserts a placeholder for it, not minding the way Jaehyun invades his space for once. Instead, he finds himself missing his heat when he moves back to his own desk. Weird.

“You know,” he says as he adjusts the text on the mockup ad, “I still feel like this is just a massive scheme Neo’s doing so the advertising heads don’t have to do anything.”  


“Johnny,” he can practically hear Jaehyun’s eye roll in his voice. “Stop. Also, no serif font on that.”

“I’m just saying. They ran out of creativity so they’re milking it out of us.”

Jaehyun laughs. “Milking is an awful way to put it.”

“We should use it in the tagline,” Johnny jokes. “‘NCT Air: Milked just for you.’”

They’re still laughing at his joke when Mark arrives, brow furrowed at the sight of the two of them.

“You guys are…here early,” the youngest of the three comments, setting his bag down beside his chair.

Jaehyun’s laughter lingers at the edge of his voice when he replies, “Oh yeah, we just wanted to get here and have time to work on the project.”  


Mark nods, then directs his curious look at Johnny. “Where’s your Thermos?”

“It’s right…” He looks at his desk, and realizes he never pulled out his usual Thermos from his bag. Johnny reaches down and fishes it out, holding it up triumphantly when he finds it.

“You haven’t had coffee yet?” Mark asks, surprised.

“Uh, guess I forgot.”

“Wanna come get some with me?”

Johnny looks to Jaehyun, who smiles and nods. “Go ahead, I’m just contacting Ten for the product photo, anyways.”  


He returns his smile, then picks up his empty Thermos and follows Mark silently to the break room. 

As soon as the door swings shut behind them, Mark corners him.

“What was that?”

Johnny presses the button to start the coffee maker. “What was what?”

“That,” Mark gestures to the door. “With Jaehyun? You never even talk to me when you haven’t had coffee. You don’t even crack a smile without caffeine in your system. Coffee is, like, first on your to-do list every morning.”

“So?”

Mark closes his eyes and sighs. “I thought you didn’t like Jaehyun.”

“I don’t,” Johnny scoffs. Then, his eyes widen when he realizes what he’s admitted to Mark—innocent, kind to everyone, friends with Jaehyun, Mark.

“That makes no sense. You were arguing with Jaehyun literally yesterday, you say you don’t like him…and now you’re laughing it up with him?”

Johnny shrugs, willing the coffee to go faster. “I made up with him, and I’m trying to be polite since we’re stuck on this project together. Doesn’t mean I…like him.”

“You must like him. I mean, since you patched things up with him and not me.”

Shit.

“Mark, I tried to look for you to apologize, but you’d already left and—”

“Don’t lie, hyung. I can’t believe you forgave Jaehyun before me. Especially ‘cause I was right the whole time!”

“You were,” Johnny admits. “You were right, and I was being unreasonable. I’m sorry for going off on you like that. I should’ve found you and apologized, or called.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Mark huffs. “I mean, you got mad at me for taking Jaehyun’s side, and then you went and forgave him first? That’s just hypocritical, bro.”

“I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean to, he just…he found me first and he’s very stubborn,” Johnny sighs. “But that’s no excuse. You’re my best friend and I should’ve made things right with you. I mean, I had no right to even get mad at you in the first place.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mark retorts. “But I forgive you. I’m sorry for fighting with you, too.”

Johnny finishes filling up his Thermos, and moves aside to let Mark fill his own mug. “It’s all good, man. But you have to split your dessert with me at lunch today,” he jokes, just to clear the tension.

He hated fighting with Mark. Even simple arguments with him made Johnny’s world feel slightly off kilter, feel wrong.

“Only if you tell me about your thing,” Mark wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“What thing?”

“C’mon, just be real about Jae, dude,” his best friend says, exasperated. “I’ve never seen anyone make you laugh like that, caffeine or no caffeine.”

Johnny nearly chokes on his scalding coffee. “Mark, no. I told you, I don’t like the guy.”

“Liar.”

“He…he’s arrogant! He _laughed_ at me, Mark.”

The younger man quirks an eyebrow up at that. “Did you not clear that misunderstanding up yesterday?”

“We did,” Johnny huffs, steam blowing about his face. “But maybe he’s lying. You never know.”

“Uh huh.”

“He’s still weird,” he mutters. “Plus, he stole my favorite pen and still hasn’t given it back. I hate him.”

“Sure,” Mark smiles, clearly unconvinced, as he takes his first sip of coffee. “Whatever you say, hyung.”

And Johnny’s naive enough to think that’s the end of it. He still hates Jaehyun, Mark thinks he doesn’t for some reason, it’s whatever.

But then, during lunch that day—

“Shit,” Johnny curses. “I forgot my lunch. How the fuck did I forget it?”

Jaehyun frowns and hurriedly cuts his sub sandwich in half. “Here, take this.”

“Are you sure? I’ll be fine, Jaehyun, really. I had some eggs this morning anyways.”

His co-worker holds out the sandwich. “Take it. You need to eat. You’re terrible to work with when you’re hungry.”

And so, Johnny takes it at Jaehyun’s insistence. And takes the apple slices he silently places in front of him. And the other half of his candy bar, because Jaehyun says he’s ‘too full to eat another bite.’

He doesn’t think anything of it, until he’s mid-bite into Jaehyun’s candy bar, and he meets Mark’s eyes across the table. They’re glimmering with…something Johnny doesn’t like.

He still polishes off the candy, though, even with Mark staring him down like a hawk.

Then, on Tuesday—

“No, John,” Jaehyun says, sounding almost teacher-like. “This is where the graphic needs to go. It’ll make more sense to the viewer that way.”

Johnny huffs, but does what he’s told. Only he can’t help but mock Jaehyun a little, pitching his voice higher as he says, “‘No, John, do it like this.’”

Jaehyun gasps, and gently slaps him on the arm. “That is not how I sound!”

“Wanna bet?” Johnny smirks, then moves the graphic to the completely wrong spot, just to tease. This, of course, sets Jaehyun off.

“Johnny, just move it,” the younger man whines cutely. Johnny liked when he made him pout, though he’d never voice that aloud. “Please.”

“Hm,” he pretends to consider it. “No.”

“Johnnyyy,” Jaehyun drags out.

He tries to suppress his grin, moving the text placeholder now just to further drive Jaehyun and his perfectionist brain over the edge. It works, and in no time, Jaehyun leans over his arm to try and regain control of the project.

However, Johnny uses all the strength he can muster in his left arm to push back against Jaehyun, his elbow digging into his co-worker’s very solid chest. Very solid.

“Let me do it,” Jaehyun huffs, eyes narrowed with determination. If Johnny didn’t have some sort of self-control, maybe he’d coo at the sight.

“I don’t think so,” he turns and sticks his tongue out at him. “Control freak.”

Only as soon as Johnny’s tongue returns to his mouth, Jaehyun attempts to lunge forward to grab at Johnny’s hand on the mouse, and they’re both shoving against each other and—

And then they both freeze, pressed nose to nose. Jaehyun’s face. Right. There.

Jaehyun inhales sharply, and Johnny can feel his breath against his lips. If he moved forward, just one inch, he could…

Johnny tears away from him.

“Sorry, um,” he mutters, looking away from Jaehyun’s parted lips and flushed cheeks. “I’ll move the graphic.”

“Good,” Jaehyun murmurs. Then, after a few seconds, he adds, “Finally.”

Johnny chances a look at Jaehyun, and feels relieved to see him smiling at him again, dimple and all. 

He snorts softly, and knocks his knee against Jaehyun’s beneath the desk. “Shut up.”

They make good headway on their mockup poster for the project, and don’t talk about the…incident. It’s just like normal, Johnny teasing and pestering Jaehyun, and Jaehyun whining and pretending to be irritated with Johnny.

Only, what’s not normal is the way Johnny sort of wants the incident to happen again. What’s not normal is how he can’t help but feel electrified whenever Jaehyun merely brushes against him for the rest of the day.

Which could only mean one thing, he realizes.

Fuck. Maybe he actually likes Jaehyun.

Maybe he didn’t have as much self-control as he thought.

And then the next day, on Wednesday—

“Oh!” Johnny smiles to himself when he opens his inbox. “My french press finally came in.”

Jaehyun peers at him through his glasses; he wasn’t wearing contacts today, his eyes strained from them sometimes, as Johnny has come to learn. “Seriously? It’s almost been a month.”

“Sometimes you gotta be patient for perfection to arrive,” he quips, leaning back in his chair. “Thank god, no more shit office coffee for me.”

“I’m jealous,” Jaehyun sighs. “If I could french press my own coffee, I’d do it.”

“It’s really not that hard,” Johnny shrugs. “I could teach you to do it.”

“Really?” Jaehyun asks, smiling when the older man nods. “That’d be awesome, Johnny.”

“I’ll make you a whole coffee tutorial. Post it on Youtube and everything,” he jokes. It’s lame. He’s aware of it as soon as the words fly out of his mouth, but Jaehyun laughs anyway, so it’s fine.

“Hey, I’m free almost every weekend,” Jaehyun says. “Plenty of time to learn.”

“Well, with that much time I can just teach you to become your own Starbucks barista,” Johnnyreplies, and smiles to himself when Jaehyun laughs even harder than before.

“Alright, I’m gonna go get some water. All this coffee talk has me thirsty. Do you, um, need anything?” The younger man stands suddenly, brushing off his dress pants as he does.

Johnny looks up to avoid weirdly gazing at Jaehyun’s thighs. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Okay, I’ll be back.”

As soon as Jaehyun turns the corner, Mark slides his chair out from behind his desk, and wheels himself over to Johnny.

“Dude!” Mark whispers. “This is your chance!”

Johnny’s not even phased by Mark’s intrusion at this point. “What are you talking about?”

“He just gave you an in, bro. Oh, this is perfect!”

“Mark. What are you talking about.”

Much to his annoyance, Mark hits him on the arm excitedly. “You can ask him to come out with us on Friday!”

Johnny blinks at the younger boy. “I’m sorry, what?”

“A bunch of the younger employees and the interns are getting together for drinks on Friday, remember?” Johnny vaguely recalls Mark’s texts about Jungwoo inviting them out this weekend. “You should ask Jaehyun to join us.”

“Why do I have to ask? Why can’t you ask?”

“Because,” Mark hits his arm again, “I’m not the one flirting with him.”

Johnny sputters. “Who—what?! Who said I was flirting with him? I don’t even like him.”  


Mark narrows his eyes at him. “I don’t have the time or energy to argue about this with you. Look,” he sighs, “all I’m saying is, if you want to, maybe you should show up tomorrow with two coffees that you…french pressed, or whatever, and give one to him. Ask him if he wants to come out for drinks with us.”

Johnny clicks the pen in his hand repeatedly for no reason. “Mark…”

“It’s just a group thing, so it’s not a big deal,” he says nonchalantly, like it was about something as arbitrary as the weather.

“I’m not,” Johnny sucks in a breath. “I can’t ask him out. It’s been four months since my last date. I should just become a bachelor forever at this point.”  


“Stop being dramatic,” Mark groans. “You’re not even asking him out on a date or anything. This is just drinks with friends.”

“Then why are you treating it like I’m asking him on a date?!” Johnny hisses.

Mark rolls his eyes. “Because, dumbass, I’m trying to get you to plant the seed. You need to at least make a kinda move on him, so he can start seeing you in _that_ way and not just a co-workery, business type of way,” he explains. “Plus, the gesture will be nice.”

Johnny crosses his arms. “I thought the lessons thing was pretty okay.”

“Teaching him about coffee is less sexy than surprising him with already made coffee.”

“You’re right,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “God, when did I start taking flirting lessons from you?”

“Aha! So it _is_ flirting,” Mark grins. “And to answer your question, I’m pretty sure that all your flirtatious confidence transferred over to me while you, uh…were stuck in your lonely rut.”

“Fuck you,” Johnny grumbles.

“Or maybe,” Mark’s grin widens dangerously, “Jaehyun just has that effect on you.”

Johnny elbows him in the side, smiling when he yelps. “Shut up about it.”

“Shut up about what?” Jaehyun returns out of nowhere, cup of water in hand.

“Nothing!” Johnny blurts. “Uh, no one, it’s nothing.”

Jaehyun gives him a skeptical look, but doesn’t push it, just sits and sets down his water and says, “Okay…”

Mark laughs gleefully at his misery, shooting him a wink before he pushes his rolling chair back to his own desk.

Which brings them to today, Thursday.  
  
Johnny wakes up to his alarm thirty minutes earlier than he usually would, and whips out his coffee beans and two Thermoses.

He nervously taps his foot the whole elevator ride up to the office, praying that he won’t spill the coffee he’d labored over before he gets there.

Fortunately, Jaehyun is the only one sitting in their corner of cubicles when he arrives, so Mark won’t witness his awkward attempts to try and flirt with their fellow employee.

Or their friend now, he guesses. Something along those lines. He’s not sure.

He truly doesn’t know what to make of this new development in his feelings towards Jaehyun. He really had disliked him at first, but somehow, over the past week or so, he couldn’t deny the pull of want he felt towards Jaehyun. It was like the ice wall between them was starting to melt, or something poetic like that.

All he knows is that he’s never been so nervous around someone in his life. Usually, he was more suave than this. But now?

Now, he was standing before Jaehyun with his hands shaking slightly, hoping that the coffee he’s made doesn’t slosh everywhere from it.

“Morning, Jae,” he greets, mustering up every last ounce of confidence he had. “I brought something for you.”

“Really? You brought something for me?” Jaehyun wraps up whatever he’s typing, then finally looks up at him. His eyes soften when he sees what’s in Johnny’s hands. “Oh, you didn’t.”

Johnny smiles and hands him a Thermos. “French pressed fresh this morning, just for you.”

And missing the extra minutes of sleep is so worth it when Jaehyun beams around a sip of coffee. “It’s really delicious, Johnny. Wow, I…thank you."  


“It was nothing,” he says as casually as possible, then sips at his own coffee to chase down his nerves. “Hey, so listen…”

“Before you say anything,” Jaehyun holds a hand up, “I already got the confirmation from Kun. For that additional visual element idea you had?”

“Oh?” Johnny asks, setting the whole date topic aside. “What’d he say?”

“The company approved the idea, and apparently, they think it’s brilliant,” Jaehyun grins. “They think your idea is brilliant. What’d I tell you?”

Johnny smiles, then sighs. “Well, now we just have to execute it brilliantly, too.”

“We will.”

And that vote of confidence makes Johnny regain a bit of confidence in himself. He straightens his stance, takes a deep breath, and asks,

“Do you wanna come out for drinks with us tomorrow?”

Jaehyun tilts his head to the side. “Are you coming this time?”

Johnny nods; Jaehyun smiles wider than he did when he received the surprise coffee.

“Then I’ll be there,” he replies, dimple decorating the side of his mouth as he says it.

And when Mark comes in ten minutes later and sees the Thermos on Jaehyun’s desk, he discreetly comes over to Johnny and gives him a fist bump when Jaehyun’s not looking.

Maybe his arrow was starting to go back up again, after all.

—

When they’re let out for work at five, Johnny speeds home as best as he can through the rush hour of Friday traffic, then promptly raids his closet.

“Wear that black button-down,” Yuta advises over the phone. “Ooh, and roll up the sleeves! That’s sexy.”  


Johnny pulls it off the hanger and slips it on. “How many buttons do I button, though?”

“For maximum sex appeal? Leave it all unbuttoned.”

“Yuta."  


“You’re boring,” he sighs and Johnny winces at the loud noise in his ear. “Just leave the top three buttons undone. Expose some chest and your collarbones, that’ll give him a show.”

“I never said it was a him,” he points out, following Yuta’s instructions and buttoning his shirt.

Yuta scoffs. “You wouldn’t be asking for my advice if it was a she, you’d call Mark for that. How long has it been since you went out with a guy anyway?”

“Uh, it’s been a while,” Johnny pushes his left sleeve to his elbow. “Probably more than six months? I can’t remember. And anyway, this isn’t a date, dude.”  


“Right, it’s your group hangout or whatever,” he clarifies. Johnny can practically hear his eye roll. “Still, you’re treating this like a date. You’re freaking out.”

“It’s not a date,” he insists, “and I’m not freaking out.”

“Sure. I bet you’re still trying to decide how to roll up your sleeves right now.”

Johnny huffs and stops messing with his right sleeve.

“Just shut up and help me decide what pants to wear, Yuta.”

He arrives at the bar a few minutes later than he’d intended, caught up in a hunt for a pair of skinny jeans that Yuta insisted would highlight his long legs.

It was worth it, because when Johnny spots Mark, waving at him like a child trying to get an adult’s attention, and he walks up to the table, he notices Jaehyun look him up and down. His eyes linger on his exposed skin, and Johnny can’t help but smirk.

So worth it.

“Look who it is,” Mark claps. “Employee of the year, Johnny Suh!”

He ruffles Mark’s hair as he slides into the booth next to him. “Oh, the kid’s got jokes now?”

Johnny pointedly ignores Mark’s tongue sticking out at him in favor of glancing over at Jaehyun, who smiles shyly at him. He grins back, admiring the younger man for a moment. Seeing him not in work clothes was…new. Good new. Hot, even.

Get it together, his brain reminds him. This isn’t a date.

Luckily, someone seated to Jaehyun’s left clears their throat, effectively reminding him that this is not a date.

“I’m not sure we’ve ever met,” some guy with soft features and ink black hair says to him. “I’m Jungwoo.”

“HR intern, right?” Johnny asks, and Jungwoo nods. “Mark’s told me about you.”

“Mark Lee,” Jungwoo gasps jokingly. “How dare you talk about me behind my back?”

While Mark and Jungwoo begin to bicker at the end of the table, Johnny finds his attention shifting back to Jaehyun, who’s swirling his drink around with his straw, amused smirk on his lips as he watches the duo argue.

Gazing at him under the dim evening light, instead of harsh, fluorescent office lighting, Johnny realizes that Jaehyun is pretty. Or maybe he’s always been pretty. Maybe he had been less jealous of the perfect hair atop his head that first day, and more…drawn to it.

Maybe, for the whole first month of him working here, Johnny had been wrong about his feelings towards Jaehyun.

It wasn’t too far fetched of an idea, after all, he’d realized he misjudged the younger man when they had that encounter in the hallway. He had made a lot assumptions about Jaehyun that were proven wrong in that moment.

Perhaps he had misread his own feelings all along.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jeno announces, startling Johnny as he does. “Traffic was awful out there.”

“Jeno’s a shit driver,” says the smaller boy next to him, clutching Jeno’s hand, “and traffic only makes that fact worse.”

“Oh, says the one who failed his driving test twice,” Jeno retorts, smile giving away his fondness for the boy holding his hand. He looks familiar, but Johnny can’t quite place him.

“Sorry,” he says to the boy. “I don’t think we’ve ever met? I’m—”

“Johnny,” the boy finishes, smiling. “I know. I’m a Neo intern. Na Jaemin? I’ve helped you out a few times.”

And wow, does Johnny feel like an ass.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember me,” Jaemin reassures him as he slides into the empty spot next to Jaehyun. “I’ve only brought you papers or forwarded you emails. Plus, new interns come in all the time. It’s hard to know all of them, right?”

“Right,” Johnny nods, still slightly embarrassed even though Jaemin doesn’t seem to mind.

Jeno takes a seat next to Johnny, and grins down the table at Jaehyun. “Hey, Jaehyun hyung, thanks for giving that recipe to Jaemin. We had it for dinner last night, and it was delicious.”

Jaehyun smiles, dimple deep as ever. “Ah, anything for my favorite couple.”  


“You should come over sometime!” Jaemin chirps excitedly to the man at his left, placing a hand on Jaehyun’s forearm. “I’ll make you this new dish I tried out…”

How did Jaehyun get so friendly with literally everyone in the office, Johnny wonders, except for him?

Seriously, he knew the interns so well he could get invited to their homes, Johnny knows Mark’s hung out with him multiple times outside of work based off their lunch anecdotes, and it seemed even the water cooler ladies adored him, since Jaehyun spent so much time there chatting away during his work breaks.

The most Johnny got from Jaehyun was their few good interactions from this week alone, and pathetically opening up to him in a random hallway.

What did that say about him? What made Johnny different from everyone else? Had he just not noticed Jaehyun trying to be friendly to him, like he had with Jaemin? Or…

Or Jaehyun just hated him as much as he did.

Well, as much as Johnny _thought_ he did. Now, he wasn’t sure of anything he felt or feels. Fuck. He needs a drink.

“Hey,” Mark nudges him in the side. “Do you wanna come grab a drink with me and Jeno?”

“Yes please,” Johnny sighs in relief, and the three of them slide out of the booth and make a beeline to the bartender.

Johnny takes charge as the oldest and orders them three beers, then turns to Jeno as soon as the bartender leaves. “I never knew you had a boyfriend.”

“Not surprising,” Mark scoffs. “You didn’t even know his boyfriend.”  


Johnny pinches Mark’s arm, making him yelp. If Jeno is offended by the remark, he doesn’t let on, smiling instead.

“We try to keep our relationship more private at work,” the intern explains. “We work in different departments now, so that helps. After we told Kun—”

That grabs Johnny’s attention. “Wait, you told Kun about your relationship?”

“If you work at Neo, you have to report your relationship with another employee to the head of the branch,” Jeno reveals. “And HR. It’s…not the most comfortable conversation in the world, but yeah. Requirement.”

“Oh damn,” Mark’s eyes widen as he looks up at Johnny. “Guess that’s gonna suck for you, bro.”

Jeno’s brow furrows. “Are you dating someone at work, hyung?”

“No, I’m not,” Johnny grits out, kicking Mark in the shin beneath the bar, just out of Jeno’s sight. “Mark’s just a dumbass.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jeno muses, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Jaehyun told me you invited him to go out with us.”

Johnny crosses his arms, leaning against the bar as he mentally urges the bartender to return. “Yeah, I did. So?”

Jeno shrugs. “I just thought, considering our last conversation…it might mean something.”

“It’s nothing,” Johnny mutters. “Just drop it, okay?”

Fortunately, the bartender comes back with their beers at that exact moment, and the Jaehyun talk ceases. They silently make their way back to their designated table, carefully balancing their glasses so as not to spill them.

But when they arrive back at the table, Johnny nearly sloshes his beer all over himself at the sight he’s met with.

Somehow, in the short time they’d been gone, Xiaojun had finally joined them. And he’d brought a friend.

A friend who had swapped seats with Jaemin, and was now sat next to Jaehyun, with his arm resting just behind Jaehyun’s shoulders, a silent claim.

He was tan, with full lips, and Johnny could tell he was tall just from the way he was sitting, like he could tower over the whole room if he wanted. He was unabashedly staring at Jaehyun, and it made Johnny’s stomach twist.

“Uh, hi?” Mark questions more than greets as they approach the table. “Xiao, this your friend?”

“Oh, yeah! This is Lucas,” Xiaojun gestures to the man sitting next to Jaehyun. Lucas lifts a hand to give the three of them a vague sort of wave, gives them a nod like they’re familiar with one another.

Johnny just takes a long sip of beer.

“Nana, can you squeeze over?” Jeno asks his boyfriend, who had moved over to sit on the other side of the booth, across from Jaehyun.

“Sure, but uh, one of you might have to pull up a chair,” Jaemin says, eyes apologetic as he and Xiaojun move down the booth to make room for them.

Jeno slides right in next to Jaemin, leaving Mark staring at Johnny with concern written all over his face.

“Hyung, I can—“

“I’ll get the chair,” Johnny insists. He didn’t want to have to sit across from Lucas, so he’d just deal with being set apart from everyone else. Sure, he’d probably be excluded from some conversations, but whatever. 

Yet, as soon as he drags the chair over and sits at the end of the table, he hates the way he feels so glaringly out of place. It was like the universe’s cruelest joke, for the one time he makes an attempt to go out and have fun, it goes to shit.

It puts him in a self-sabotaging mood, which is what motivates him to ask:

“So, Lucas…how do you and Jaehyun know each other?”

Johnny can feel Mark glance at him worriedly, but he pays him no mind. Instead, he focuses on the way Jaehyun visibly stiffens in his seat at the question.

“We just, uh, met in uni,” Jaehyun answers, eyes darting between the man at his right and Johnny.

“And we dated for two years,” Lucas reveals, tone ever so casual, yet it comes across as something sharp to Johnny. “But we’re still great friends and all. I tell people all the time, Jaehyun’s my favorite ex.”

Jaehyun flushes at that, slapping Lucas’s chest lightly. “I told you to stop saying that.”

“What?” Lucas laughs, too loud for Johnny’s liking. “It’s the truth!”

“How the hell does anyone have a favorite ex?” Mark asks. “They’re an ex for a reason. I mean, you guys broke up for a reason, right?”

“Sure, but it was all circumstantial,” Lucas shrugs. “Jaehyun had to move to start his career. It couldn’t have been helped. It’s not like we broke up because we wanted to, it was more like we had to.”

“And now, what,” Johnny interjects, “you’re just…here now? All of a sudden?”

Lucas chuckles, even though Johnny’s said nothing funny. “No, no, I’ve been living in this area for a few months now. Xiaojun and I are roommates, and he told me he met Jaehyun on one of his first few days at Neo. So if anything, he came to me all of a sudden.”

Jaehyun clears his throat, and glances over at Johnny. “It wasn’t, uh, intentional. I had no idea Lucas was in this area until very recently, so.”

“But now we’ll get to spend time together,” Lucas beams, hand clasping around Jaehyun’s shoulder, “just like old times!”

Johnny takes another long sip of beer. This was shaping up to be one of the worst nights out he’s ever had.

He’s just forced to sit there and watch Lucas, with his warm smile and giant hands and puppy eyes, sidled right up against Jaehyun, who seems torn between sending Lucas fond gazes and anxious glances in Johnny’s direction.

At this point, he’d rather be neglected by Jaehyun than be on the receiving end of his concern. There was nothing to be concerned about. This wasn’t a date, they weren’t dating, they weren’t even friends—there was nothing.

When the conversation reaches a lull at the table, Jungwoo pipes up, saying, “Hey, why don’t we all hit the dance floor?”

Everyone’s sliding out of the booth, but Johnny waits, tossing back the last of his drink to mentally prepare himself. When he sets his glass back down, he realizes Jaehyun is still there, staring up at him.

“Johnny, I swear, I didn’t know he’d show up.”

“It’s fine, Jaehyun-ah,” he lies.

Jaehyun frowns. “You never did that before, though.”

“Did what?” Johnny really could use another drink.

“Used honorifics with me,” Jaehyun answers. “You never…look, if you’re upset, I can ask him to leave, I can—”

“Jaehyun,” he cuts him off. “It’s fine. It’s not like this was a…a date, anyways. Do whatever you want, yeah?”

The younger man looks down at his empty drink, using his straw to swirl around the last few intact pieces of ice that still lingered in his cup, unmelted and cold. “Right. I’ll do that, hyung.”

Jaehyun leaves without sparing a glance in his direction, and Johnny feels that twinge in his chest creeping up on him again.

It’s the same feeling he’s had ever since Jaehyun dropped that box on his foot, the same burn that goes straight to his core. It ignites his whole chest as he stands and goes over to join the others, burns brighter when he sees Jaehyun dancing away, smiling radiantly as Lucas places a hand on his hip.

And when he watches their lips meet, right there, right in front of him?

Johnny thinks he might be on fire. The burning is suffocating, so suffocating. It’s filling his lungs, he thinks. He parts the crowd, pushing past strangers and couples and friends, escaping to the parking lot so he can gulp in fresh air.

All this time, he’d simply written off this feeling as pent-up envy and anger towards Jaehyun. And while it happened whenever his co-worker was near, he realizes now.

The anger he felt, the flames inside himself—those weren’t for Jaehyun after all.

The only person he was truly angry with was himself.


	2. breath's so close you take mine away from me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny starts to fall, fall, fall. Like a domino, one push sends him over the edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prepare yourselves for Johnny smoking cigarettes and getting drunk ://
> 
> also idk if it's obvious or not but just in case: the product Johnny and Jaehyun are promoting is a pair of wireless bluetooth headphones and you can like connect w other ppl's headphones and share music w them bc I want this feature to Exist

When they return to work on Monday, Johnny’s instantly bombarded with Mark’s questions.

“Oh, you’re alive,” Mark sighs, relieved. “Where the fuck did you go last Friday?”

“Home,” Johnny replies, tugging off his bag and setting it on the ground.

“Home. Wait, like your home or someone else’s home?”

He sips at his coffee. “My home.”

“And you couldn’t have sent a quick text to tell me you’d made it home safe? You didn’t answer my calls or my texts all weekend, hyung,” Mark stresses.

Johnny merely shrugs, then reaches over to turn on his work desktop like he’s done a thousand times. Another day, just regurgitated slightly differently. Such joy.

“Dude,” Mark tugs at his shirtsleeve. “You have to tell me what’s up. You look like death.”

“Thanks, Mark,” he smiles grimly, cheeks stretching with the effort of it. “You always know how to flatter me.”

Johnny opens up his inbox and ignores the way Mark crosses his arms and shoots him a pitying look. There’s a message from a rather wealthy potential buyer he’d been in contact with for the past few days. Interesting.

“Stop with the jokes, man. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Johnny insists, as if trying to convince himself, too. “Look, this guy wants to buy from me. If anything, I’m on cloud nine over here.”

Mark tugs at his arm, pulling Johnny’s hand off the mouse. “Johnny. C’mon, I know the Lucas thing is messing with your head. You gotta talk to me about it, before Jaehyun shows up.”

At the mention of Jaehyun’s name, he falters. “What is there to talk about? He kissed his ex right in front of me.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t just,” Mark waves his hands around, “happen! Did you guys talk about it or anything?”

Johnny lets out a long sigh. “Look, I’d rather not get into it, okay? Just…not right now. I’m tired of thinking and thinking about it. Besides, it’s not like we were dating or anything like that. It’s whatever.”

Mark stares at him for a full minute, before he lets his shoulders sag defeatedly. “Fine. We don’t have to talk about it, but are you gonna talk to Jae today? I don’t want to have to be the buffer for you two forever.”

“Yeah, I plan on it.”

“Good. Just say the word, man, and I can leave you guys alone.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

“And hey, if it helps,” his best friend adds before returning to his own desk, “Jaehyun never replied to my texts all weekend, either.”

Johnny tries not to let that information go to his head, although part of him wonders if Jaehyun was moping around all weekend, too. Wonders if he’d been thinking of all the things he’d like to say, too.

Only all the brilliant sentences Johnny had mentally drafted on Saturday and Sunday fly out the window when Jaehyun finally shows up to work, eyes tired behind his glasses and perfect hair more messy than usual.

“Morning. Nice weekend?” he hears Mark ask behind the cubicle wall.

Johnny sees Jaehyun shake his head out of the corner of his eye; he’s too chicken shit to even look at the guy.

“That good, huh?” Mark remarks amusedly.

“Pretty much,” Jaehyun says in one breath, taking his usual seat next to Johnny. Only Jaehyun seems to have slid his chair over a few centimeters, because usually, Johnny could put his own arm on his co-worker’s armrest. If he wanted to, that is. 

Mark opens his mouth to inquire Jaehyun further about his weekend, but the latter shuts him up with a hurried, “Let’s not talk about it.”

And so, two hours pass, with the three of them working in a rare silence.

It must make Mark uneasy, since Johnny finds an email from him at the top of his inbox that is most definitely not work-related.

**To:** [sjohn@neozone.org](mailto:sjohn@neozone.org)

**Cc:** j[jaehyun@neozone.org](mailto:jaehyun@neozone.org)

**From:** [lmark@neozone.org](mailto:lmark@neozone.org)

**Subject:** SAY SOMETHING

_Hey hyung,_

_So…are you going to talk to him yet?_

_Like I know this whole thing is totally none of my business haha but can you please speak to him already or like look at him??? It’s freaking me out…_

_Honestly I think I liked it better listening to you guys flirt and that was TERRIBLE but this is worse sooo fix it!!!_

_:) -Mark_

Johnny knows Mark can’t see him through the wall that separates them, but he glares at it anyways, in hopes that the younger can feel it.

**To:** [lmark@neozone.org](mailto:lmark@neozone.org)

**Cc:** j[jaehyun@neozone.org](mailto:jaehyun@neozone.org)

**From:** [sjohn@neozone.org](mailto:sjohn@neozone.org)

**Re:** SAY SOMETHING

_stfu and focus on ur work instead of my issues mark_

_if silence bothers you that much invest in some lovely NCT Air headphones (see I am good at my job)_

_also ignore my default email signature bc I assure you I have no respect for marketing workers <3_

_Respectfully,_

_John Suh, Sales_

He goes back to the numbers he has open for the previous month, trying to calculate a profit report to send back to Taeil, when another email appears in his inbox.

**To:** [sjohn@neozone.org](mailto:sjohn@neozone.org), [lmark@neozone.org](mailto:lmark@neozone.org)

**From:** j[jaehyun@neozone.org](mailto:jaehyun@neozone.org)

**Re:** SAY SOMETHING

_uh…not sure if you guys realized I was cc’ed in this??_

_Sincerely,_

_Jung Jaehyun_

_Neo Technology, CMO_

Johnny’s eyes widen as soon as he reads it, whipping his head to the side to find Jaehyun’s gaze already on him.

“Didn’t know you felt so strongly about marketing employees,” Jaehyun muses, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I didn’t mean that,” he blurts. “I was just trying to make fun of Mark, and I didn’t know that you—”

Jaehyun laughs, miraculously. “Don’t worry, I get it.”

“Oh,” Johnny sighs in relief, then scratches at the back of his head. “Well, this is embarrassing. I’m sorry you had to, uh, witness that.”

“It’s fine, honestly I—”

“Wait,” Mark stands suddenly, interrupting Jaehyun. “Does everyone have an email signature already set up? I’ve been manually typing mine this whole time for no reason?!”

Now that Mark can see him, Johnny makes it a point to glare up at him.

“Yeah, people who don’t accidentally cc other people into _private_ conversations are smart like that, Johnny snipes.

“Damn, my bad,” Mark holds his hands up, surrendering. “I didn’t notice until it was too late. But hey, it worked at least! You guys are talking to each other!”

Johnny thinks about reaching up and strangling the kid for a millisecond, but, instead, he shoots Mark a look that’s just intimidating enough to say it all.

“Hyung, wha—oh!” Mark claps his hands together in realization. “Got it. I’m gonna,” he jerks his thumb behind himself vaguely, “head that way and…do something. You guys can, uh, stay here!”

“Just go, Mark,” Johnny mutters, rubbing at his temple like a stressed out father.

“I’m going, I’m going!”

And with that, Mark leaves him alone with Jaehyun.

“He’s not a very good liar,” the younger man remarks as soon as Mark rounds the corner.

“No,” Johnny chuckles, swiveling his chair to the side to face him. “He’s not.”

Jaehyun plays with the chained silver bracelet around his wrist, brow contorted with thought. He seems nervous, and that makes Johnny a thousand times more nervous.

“You’re not a good liar either, though,” Jaehyun says, attention shifting from his bracelet to Johnny’s eyes. “You were lying, right? When you said it was fine, about Lucas.”

“It is fine,” he insists, whether to convince himself or Jaehyun, he’s not exactly sure. “Nothing happened between us, so you can have a clean slate with him. I can just be a weird little…blip in your life."

“Johnny…”

“I’m serious,” he says, earnestly. “Look, you and Lucas didn’t have a proper end to your relationship. You both deserve the chance to explore that and see what happens.”

Jaehyun frowns. “But what about you?”

“We’re still getting to know each other, and we can still do that…as friends,” Johnny clarifies. “I mean, we haven’t had a chance to really become friends yet, anyways. We should probably work on that. You go be with him, and we can pretend this never happened. Just start all over, as friends.”

The younger man opens his mouth, then thinks better of it, and presses his lips together, nodding.

“Friends. Okay,” Jaehyun gives him a ghost of a smile, the corner of his mouth just barely lifting. “It’s probably for the best anyways, since we’re co-workers and all.”

“Exactly,” Johnny says. “And anyways, if we _did_ get together, apparently we’d have to tell Kun…and I don’t think he’d like it very much if the two guys assigned to this important branch project were dating. He’d probably watch us like a hawk every minute.”

Jaehyun lets out his pretty, bright laugh. “You’re probably right. But seriously…are you sure you’re okay?”

Johnny smiles. “I’m alright. I was the one who said we could be friends, didn’t I? If I get upset over that, there’s no one to blame but myself.”

“Alright, just, uh, making sure. But just to be clear,” Jaehyun adds, “if I start dating Lucas…”

“Then I’d be happy for you two,” Johnny replies. “I mean, you guys have something, we don’t. It’s fine.”

Jaehyun’s eyes drag back down to his bracelet, fidgeting with it again. “Right…cool.”

He’s not sure what to make of that response, so Johnny just holds out a hand to Jaehyun.

“So, friends?”

Jaehyun looks at his hand, then looks up at Johnny and smiles, taking his hand in his and shaking it.

“Friends.”  


And Johnny really tries, he really tries not to think about how warm Jaehyun’s hands are. He tries not to notice how the warmth lingers on his skin, still there even when Mark returns ten minutes after their conversation ends.

Friends, friends, friends—he has to mentally repeat this, like a mantra, nearly every time he looks at Jaehyun for the rest of the day.

On his way home from work, he listens to unrequited love songs and lets out his frustration by yelling lyrics at every red light. When he tries to go to sleep, he stares at the ceiling for a long time, and tries not to cry.

He didn’t deserve to be upset or angry or cry. Not when he was the cause of every tear, every pang of hurt. Like he told Jaehyun, there’s no one to blame for this but himself.

And if there was anything Johnny was good at, it was blaming himself.

—

“Do you think I have a nice smile?”

Johnny and Mark are standing at the vending machine, taking a small work break together.

“Dude, what?” Mark asks in confusion, punching in ‘A3’. “Why are you asking me that?”

Johnny shrugs. “I overheard Jaehyun talking to Jaemin about how much he missed seeing Lucas’s smile. Anyways, just answer the question.”

“Oh, I see,” Mark rolls his eyes. “This is a Lucas thing.”

“Answer?”

“Hyung, your smile is terrific,” he replies, reaching down to grab his bag of chips. “Now stop comparing yourself just because you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous,” Johnny scoffs. “It’s only natural to compare myself to him. I mean, he’s the same height as me, kind of lanky, and, apparently, we both have nice smiles…”  


“And Jaehyun just happens to be the guy you’re both pining after? Yeah,” Mark pats at Johnny’s shoulder sympathetically. “It’s okay to be jealous, big guy.”

“No it’s not,” he swipes a chip from Mark’s bag angrily. “Jealousy is wrong. It’s toxic. No one likes a jealous person. And I shouldn’t even be jealous, because the whole reason Lucas is with Jaehyun is because I let him have Jaehyun. Well, not _let,_ Jaehyun is his own person with—”

“Dude,” Mark puts an end to his rambling, thankfully. “Jealousy is terrible and all, yeah, but everyone experiences it. That’s why everyone hates it. We all feel it, and we all hate it, because 99% of the time we have no valid reason to be jealous. It’s just…part of being human. It’s okay if you’re jealous of him. You don’t have to lie to me.”

Johnny lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Thanks. I just feel like I have no right to be upset about something I made happen, technically.”

“Probably not, but,” Mark shrugs, “if that’s how you feel, you can’t control that. It’ll pass, once you move on and stuff.”

“You’re right.”  


Mark grins, then crunches down on a chip directly into Johnny’s ear. “I know. Now stop comparing your stupid smile to someone else’s, and let’s go back to work.”  


“Hey! My smile is not stupid!” Johnny protests, and follows Mark back to the cubicle area with a small, maybe stupid smile on his face.

The green head of envy still pokes against his chest when Jaehyun mentions Lucas at lunch, and when Johnny spots a photo of the two of them on Jaehyun’s cubicle wall, and when Lucas calls Jaehyun just before work ends.

But he just lets himself feel through the pain, lets the green monster push against him all it wants.

Soon, Johnny thinks. Soon he’d be able to tame it.

Just not today.

—

Being friends with Jaehyun comes a lot easier now, since Johnny isn’t preoccupied with trying to compete with him or dissect their encounters for things to be angry about. Or trying to flirt with him without being awkward.

Now, they could just…be.

Be themselves, be the great, hard-working team they were meant to be from the beginning.

“Hey, you know what could be a good idea for our project?” Jaehyun suggests one day, while they’re printing out their first draft of posters to show Kun. “Our bonus visual element could be, like, a real ad. A filmed ad.”

Johnny watches the printer slowly spit out their hard work, centimeter by centimeter. “A filmed ad? What about my photo series idea?”

“I like that idea too,” Jaehyun says, “but I think this would add some more dimension to our project, y’know? It would show that we really put thought into this thing. And how many people are going to put effort like this into a work competition?”

“People who want to win,” Johnny retorts, pulling the poster off the printer. “How’d you come up with this idea, anyway?”

“Remember when you told me the other day that you used to make short films in college?”

Johnny briefly recalls the story he’d told Mark and Jaehyun about the film class he’d attempted to take for two semesters, before he ended up dropping the class. He’d made decent grades in it and, if he’s being honest, really liked working with cameras and film—but it just wasn’t practical.

“Jaehyun-ah, I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea,” he chuckles. “I’m no Bong Joon-ho or anything.”

“No, listen!” The younger man laughs. “I was watching a movie with Lucas last night, and…”

Johnny awkwardly glances down at the poster in hand instead of making eye contact with Jaehyun. He tries really hard not to think about Lucas and Jaehyun all cuddled up, watching movies together.

Suppress it, he reminds himself. Suppress the green monster.

“…it would be just like filming a TV ad, Johnny!” Jaehyun concludes excitedly. “It would definitely set us apart from the competition.”

“Even if we did do this,” Johnny sighs, “what would our concept even be? And who would act in it?”

He hums thoughtfully. “Well, it would have to revolve around the product, of course. I was thinking we’d focus on connection, since the flashy feature of the headphones is obviously the new ‘sharing’ function. Maybe we could hire people for it?”

“I don’t think Kun would let us use company money to hire actors that we weren’t supposed to need in the first place,” Johnny counters.

“You’re right,” Jaehyun sighs. “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

Johnny hates the way his stomach lurches when he gazes down at Jaehyun’s disappointed little frown.

“No, wait,” he blurts. “I…like the idea. We can make it work, I think. Someone around here’s bound to want to help us, right? Get their big acting break?”

Jaehyun’s face lights up, and he hates how relieved he feels by it.

“Really? You’re on board?” the younger man asks around a grin.

And even if he’s kind of not, Johnny smiles and replies, “I am.”

“I knew you’d come around, hyung,” Jaehyun says teasingly, then launches into a detailed explanation of what he thinks the ad should look like.

Johnny tries his best to keep up with his words, but his thoughts drift to film.

If this were a movie, what would he look like on the silver screen? 

Would he just be the sad side character that pathetically pines over the ideal protagonist because of a handful of interactions? A character in Jaehyun’s background? The antagonist everyone hates for being a jealous jackass and getting in between the perfect couple?

That’s not the character he wants to become, he realizes. He can’t become that. It’s high time he become the protagonist in his own story.

So, as he silently stands next to Jaehyun in the elevator ride up to Kun’s office, he comes to terms with it.

He needs to let go and move on, onto the next scene in his film.

Johnny goes home, picks up his camera, and wonders.

—

It’s hard to move on, especially when you work right next to the only person you’ve had a connection with in months.

Johnny gets in the habit of smiling and nodding politely whenever Lucas is brought up. He actively avoids looking at Jaehyun for longer than five seconds, and makes sure there’s always a decent amount of space between them.

It’s starting to work, he thinks. After a few days, it feels like things go from weird to kind of okay, and he considers that progress.

Only sometimes, there are things like:

“Okay then, let’s play fuck, marry, kill with people in the office!” Mark says, sat in between Jaehyun and Johnny’s work spaces, feet propped up onto Johnny’s desk.

“I was only kidding, Mark,” Johnny rolls his eyes, reaching across the younger’s stretched out legs to take the paper Jaehyun’s holding out to him. “We can keep playing with random musicians if you want.”

“No, because I know you’ll just say I have bad taste every time, and I did not come here to be insulted,” Mark retorts.

“Then you came to the wrong place, bud,” he says, shoving at Mark’s foot.

Mark leans back in his chair, reassuming his relaxed, sprawled out position. “Whatever. You start then, Suh. Let’s go…interns. Jeno, Jaemin, Xiao.”

“Marry Jaemin, because the kid can cook,” Johnny reasons. “Uh, fuck Jeno, I guess? And then I guess Xiaojun’s gotta go.”

“Brutal,” Mark muses, then cranes his neck in Jaehyun’s direction. “Alright, Jae, your turn. Jungwoo, Doyoung, or the secretary on the first floor. Go.”

Jaehyun chuckles. “Obviously marry the secretary. She’s a lifesaver. Fuck Jungwoo, and then kill Doyoung. Just because I think Taeyong would kill me if I slept with his man.”

“Oh, but if you kill him, he’ll be fine with it,” Johnny jokes.

Mark shrugs. “I think TY’s thought about doing it before. It’s probably fine. Oh, wait, I’ve got a good one! Do the marketing team: me, Taeyong, and Jaehyun.”

Johnny freezes.

“Uh, Mark,” Jaehyun starts to say. “I don’t think J—”

“It’s fine,” Johnny shoots them both a pinched smile. “For starters, kill Mark. Slowly and very deliberately. Sleep with Taeyong, then likely regret it. And…marry Jaehyun. There, happy?”

“Very,” Mark’s eyes practically shimmer with mirth. “Jaehyun, you do sales. Taeil, Yuta, and Johnny.”

“Oh, well…” Jaehyun rubs the back of his neck, ears flushed. “I guess kill Yuta? Only because I don’t know him well. Um, sleep with Taeil just for fun. Marry Johnny, because, well…he’s kind and…”

Jaehyun turns to look at him then, straight into his eyes.

“You’d make a good husband, I think."  


Johnny forgets how to breathe whilst Mark slowly backs his chair away with a smirk on his face.

“My work here is done,” the younger boy murmurs to himself, as his suddenly very red hyungs hurriedly return to their work, looking at anything but each other.

Later, when they’re hanging out in his apartment, Johnny kicks Mark’s ass for meddling. And then, after that, the game doesn’t get brought back up again.

Johnny never really forgets it. But still, they’re making progress.

He even treats Jaehyun and Mark to dinner one evening after work, something he rarely did with anyone who wasn’t in his immediate circle. Now that he and Jaehyun were friends, it was only right that he be let into the circle.

“Thanks for inviting me out, hyung,” Jaehyun says when they’re finally seated. “This restaurant seems really nice.”

“Oh, this place is awesome,” Mark praises. “We go here a lot. Johnny loves the meat.”

Johnny nearly chokes on his water while Jaehyun gazes at Johnny through his lashes, smirking cheekily.

“Is that so?”

Mark flips casually through the menu, oblivious to Johnny practically dying next to him. “Oh yeah, he always orders a bunch of different types. The pork here is really…”

Johnny stares down at some random item on the menu instead of daring to look in Jaehyun’s direction again. 

Was he flirting with him just then? Surely not. They were just friends now. Jaehyun was probably just trying to be playful. It was just a joke at Johnny’s expense, like the ones Mark made all the time.

Only it was nothing like the jokes Mark made all the time, and Johnny never felt this shaken up over Mark’s jokes.

He nearly opens his mouth to make a similar playful, definitely not flirtatious remark about meat to see if he can make Jaehyun’s ears turn that wonderful shade of red, when he hears him say:

“So…Lucas asked me to be his boyfriend last night.”

Well, it definitely hadn’t been flirting.

“Whoa, really?” Mark worriedly glances at Johnny before shifting his attention back to Jaehyun. “Hasn’t it only been, like, two weeks since you guys reunited or whatever? That’s pretty soon…”

“Three weeks, actually,” Jaehyun corrects. “And we were together for a long time, so it’s different. Like, it’s different when you have a history, you know?”

“I guess that’s true,” Mark admits, looking Johnny’s way again. “That’s nice, though. I’m happy for you guys.”

Johnny doesn’t know how to feel about this sudden announcement. He doesn’t feel the burn of jealousy or anger, doesn’t get hit with waves of sadness.

He simply feels…numb.

“I’m happy for you, too,” Johnny musters up the closest thing he can get to a smile, and hopes it’s enough.

“Thank you, Johnny,” Jaehyun smiles widely, dimple glaring back at him. 

He seems genuinely happy, and Johnny knows he just has to accept it. He has to leave whatever _thing_ he and Jaehyun had behind, for real.

_This is your fault_ , his mind hisses at him as he struggles to seem unaffected. _You did this_.

After that night, Johnny doesn’t invite Jaehyun out to his next dinner with Mark, nor the one he has with Yuta and Mark. But it’s not a big deal.

It’s fine. They’re still making progress. Slowly, but surely.

—

“Okay, what do you think about asking…?” Jaehyun cocks his head towards Mark’s cubicle.

Their project was pretty much completed at this point, save for the PowerPoint Jaehyun had to make and filming their ad idea, which was nearly all planned out.

Johnny had dug up an old camera from his uni days, and researched some basic editing—so they were all good to go production wise. Their design elements, namely fonts, would be complementary to the advertisement posters they’d already made. Jaehyun had already picked out a good filming location, wrote a small script for the voice over, and plotted out directions for their actors.

Leaving them with the only part still missing: the actors.

“Seriously?” Johnny asks in disbelief. “Your first choice is Mark?”

Jaehyun shrugs. “I don’t know, I’m just throwing it out there. We only have two weeks to finish this. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Not that desperate,” he retorts, swiveling in his chair from side to side as he thinks. “I think we should get people from outside of the office. Otherwise it becomes a whole thing.”

The younger man hums. “I guess you’re right. I don’t want the HR ladies to get pissed at us for not choosing them.”

“Exactly,” Johnny says. “They’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, racking their brains for potential actors in their circle of non-office friends.

And then, Johnny’s struck with an idea. It’s not an idea he’s a particularly big fan of, but he had to rip off the bandaid sometime.

“What if we ask Lucas?”

Jaehyun blinks at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Lucas?”

“Yeah,” Johnny stops swiveling to really look at Jaehyun. “He’s a good fit. Do you think he’d be up for it?”

“I…yes? Probably?” Jaehyun answers. “I’ll have to ask him, I guess.”

Johnny nods, ignoring the twist in his chest like it was second nature. “Do that. I have someone in mind to play his counterpart, so I’ll cover that. Maybe we can film this weekend if they both say yes?”

“Let’s shoot for Friday,” Jaehyun agrees, making note of it in his phone.

“Sounds good,” he says, then jokes, “Hey, if all goes well, you’ll have an actor boyfriend after this.”

Jaehyun looks at him for a long moment before he finally smiles. “I guess so.”

The next morning, Johnny sits with Mark in the break room, watching the kid fill up his maple leaf mug.

“So, how’s the top secret project coming along?”

Johnny snorts at Mark’s name for it. “It’s coming. Super top secret though, so I can’t tell you too much.”

Mark hums to the tune of some pop song Johnny can’t place as he presses a button on the coffee maker. “I heard you guys whispering about something yesterday. All I could make out was Lucas’s name, though. Something going on with him and Jae?”

“Nah,” Johnny shakes his head. “I just asked Jaehyun if he’d be willing to participate in something we’re filming for the project, is all.”

“Oh?” Mark quirks an eyebrow up at that. “That’s pretty big of you, dude. Didn’t know you were there yet.”

“Yeah, well,” he sighs into his Thermos. “I’ve gotta accept it sometime. The sooner I do that, the sooner I can move on.”

“Good for you, man.”

Johnny shifts in his seat. “Yeah, I think so…you know, Joy asked me out on a date again.”

“Oh really?” Mark’s eyes widen. “Did you say yes?”

“I told her I’d think about it,” he shrugs, “since I’m still getting over someone.”

“Yeah. Well, did you tell Jae about it? Try to gauge his reaction?”

The door suddenly swings open to reveal Jaehyun. Just his luck.

“Tell me about what?” the younger man asks, making a beeline to the bowl of fresh apples sitting on the counter.

“Uh,” Mark hesitates. “It’s just…Johnny’s new nickname for you!”

Jaehyun snorts, biting into his apple. “A nickname.”

“Yep,” Mark replies, eyes shifting over to Johnny. “Tell him!”

Johnny really ought to strangle him one of these days.

“Well, since Mark calls you Jae,” he pauses, trying to come up with something, anything, “I thought I’d call you…Hyun.”

Jaehyun wrinkles up his nose at that. “Wow, you two are creative,” he replies sarcastically.

“Too bad, you’re Hyun now,” Johnny retorts, shooting a glare at Mark when Jaehyun closes his eyes to bite into his apple again. Mark mouths a ‘sorry,’ eyes apologetic.

“Oh, by the way,” Jaehyun pipes up, “Lucas said he’s up for it. One actor down.”

Johnny nods. “Mine said yes, too, so we’ve got our two now.”

“So, we’re ready to go for Friday then?”

“Looks like it. Good work, _Hyun_ ,” Johnny smirks. “See you then.”

—

Johnny arrives at the cafe Jaehyun selected just an hour before closing, like they’d planned.

Except unlike he’d planned, he wasn’t arriving with his actual experienced actress friend, Irene. She had to cancel on him last minute, scheduled for something much more important than a not-real commercial shoot.

So instead, he was showing up with Joy in tow, right after their first real date together.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Johnny asks for the tenth time, opening the cafe door for her. “You don’t have to. I’m sure Jaehyun and I can figure something else out, or reschedule with Irene."

“It’s fine, Johnny,” she reassures him, yet again. “Do you not believe I can do it or something?”

“It’s not that.” More like he doesn’t believe in himself to film this or execute this properly, but no one wanted to hear about the cameraman’s doubts.

“Then trust me. I’m ready for this,” Joy smiles warmly, then flips her hair. “I have a fantastic face for ads, after all.”

Johnny laughs, shaking his head at her antics as he leads them to the cafe’s back patio area, where Jaehyun said he’d be in his last text to him.

Sure enough, Lucas and Jaehyun are standing beneath the cafe’s string lights, right next to a tripod. Lucas flashes them both a grin and waves when they enter, while Jaehyun lifts his hand in greeting, dimpled smile welcoming them.

“Hey, sorry if we kept you waiting,” Johnny greets. “This is Joy. Joy, this is Jaehyun and his boyfriend, Lucas.”

“Nice to meet you both,” she smiles, shaking their hands politely. “I’m excited to be part of this! Although I have to be honest, I have no acting experience whatsoever.”

“Me neither!” Lucas exclaims. “I guess this’ll be interesting, then. I’m just gonna try to channel the energy of a Calvin Klein ad…”

As Joy and Lucas launch into a conversation about ads and acting, Johnny pulls his camera out of its bag and goes over to set it up on the tripod, Jaehyun following closely behind him.

“I hope this one’s okay,” Jaehyun rubs at one of his arms nervously. “It’s the only tripod I had. I haven’t used it in ages.”

Johnny shakes his head. “No, this is perfect. I would’ve brought mine, but I forgot. First date jitters got to me, I guess,” he chuckles, clicking his camera into place.

Jaehyun tilts his head. “You were on a date?”

“Um, yeah,” Johnny looks up at him momentarily, before going back to fix the camera’s settings. “With Joy. I hadn’t planned on bringing her here afterwards, but stuff came up with the first actor I had in mind…so she stepped up.”

“I see,” Jaehyun murmurs, staring over at Joy. “Well, we’re lucky that they look good together. Next to each other, I mean.”

Johnny glances up to see Joy laughing at something Lucas said, Lucas’s friendly eyes gazing down at her with a childlike warmth. They both shine beneath the soft lights strung overhead, and, visually, they’re quite a striking pair.

“They do,” he agrees, double checking the focus before he looks back at Jaehyun. “Ready to start, Hyun?”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, swatting at Johnny’s arm playfully before he approaches Lucas and Joy to direct them.

Fortunately, the filming only takes half an hour, due to Lucas and Joy’s somehow natural acting abilities and Jaehyun’s secret directing skills. The process was smooth, and Johnny thinks maybe they made something pretty great after all.

“Good work, guys,” Johnny praises when the four of them gather in a small circle outside the cafe, prepared to part ways for the evening. “Hopefully we made something award-winning here.”

“How can we not win when Lucas has moves like that?” Joy laughs, arm interlocked with Johnny’s. For some reason, Jaehyun’s eyeing her weirdly.

Johnny pays him no mind, and chuckles along with her. “You’re right. Lucas, my man, where’d you learn to dance…and can you teach me?”

“Of course, dude! Let’s waltz right now,” Lucas jokes, holding his hand out as if asking Johnny to dance.

Johnny laughs, looking over to Jaehyun to see that he’s staring at the pavement, gaze unfocused. His expression is blank, unreadable.

“Hyun,” he says, trying to earn the younger man’s attention. “I think I’m gonna steal your boyfriend for dance lessons. Hope you don’t mind.”

Jaehyun looks up at him and smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sure.”

“Oh, the four of us could do, like, couples’ dancing lessons!” Joy claps her hands together excitedly. “Wouldn’t that be so fun?”

Johnny places his hand against the small of her back, missing the way Jaehyun’s eyes track this movement. “Maybe it’d be fun for you,” he replies. “Some of us have two left feet.”

“Once I teach you, hyung,” Lucas says, “you’ll be a pro! I can teach you how to dip Joy like I did back there.”

Johnny smiles down at Joy for a moment, then turns back to say something to Lucas. However, when he opens his mouth to speak, Jaehyun interjects.

“It’s getting late,” his co-worker says. “We should probably get going.”

“Oh,” Johnny lifts his arm to glance at his watch, “you’re right. Well, thanks for helping us out with this, Lucas.”

“It’s no problem, man,” he reaches forward and pats his shoulder once. “Let me know when you want those dance lessons.”

“It was lovely to meet you both,” Joy smiles at the couple, then turns to Johnny. “I’m gonna go wait in the car.”

“Let me walk you there, Joy,” Lucas says. “It’s the least I can do.”

Johnny watches the two walk away, arm in arm, then drags his attention back to Jaehyun, who’s standing there, eyes trained back on the ground.

“Jaehyun,” he starts, gently, “are you okay?”

The younger man wraps his arms tighter around himself. “Were you ever going to tell me about…her?”

Johnny’s brow furrows. “Yes. Eventually, yes, but it’s only been one date so far.”

“I know, but,” Jaehyun locks eyes with him now, “we’re friends. People tell their friends about things like this.”

“You’re right,” he admits. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know how to, um…what was okay to…”

“You don’t have to dance circles around me just because of our,” Jaehyun inhales sharply, “past. You can tell me things. I know I’m not Mark, but you can confide in me.”

“Okay. I’m sorry for being a bad friend,” Johnny apologizes. “I’ll tell you all about our second date next time, yeah?”

Jaehyun screws up his mouth, like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. He exhales, and lets his shoulders sag. “Okay,” he nods, arms still around his body to block out the cold.

Johnny shoves his hands into his pockets, doing his best not to reach out and warm Jaehyun up himself. “Okay. Good night, Hyun. See you Monday?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun nods, then scrunches his nose up cutely. “You know, you could at least make the nickname sound a bit nicer.”

Johnny stares up at the stars in thought, then snaps his fingers. “Hyunnie!”

“Oh god,” Jaehyun groans. “I’m not sure if it’s better or worse.”

He grins brightly at him as he steps backward, heading towards his car. “Night, Hyunnie!”

“Good night, John,” he calls back, laughing as he says it.

And even though Johnny goes home alone, he can’t help but smile as he falls asleep, thinking of Jaehyun and his laugh, echoing in the night.

—

“So, how did the date go?” Mark asks.

“I thought it went well,” Johnny sighs, reclining back in his chair. “But there will unfortunately be no date two. So maybe it was awful.”

“Oh no,” Jaehyun frowns, stopping his work to place a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “What happened?”

“You guys made the girl work for you in the middle of the date,” Mark scoffs. “That’s what happened.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “That is not what happened. She just felt like I was more interested in someone else is all,” he mumbles.

Mark whistles. “Damn, dude. Guess she’s not coming to the office party with you, then?”

“Obviously not,” he glares at Mark.

They’d all received an email from Kun (or Ten, rather, since he wrote all of Kun’s emails) inviting them to the annual party celebrating the anniversary of their branch’s establishment. It was a dumb party that everyone in the office basically used as an excuse to get wasted.

“That sucks,” Mark frowns. “But hey, is Lucas gonna come with you, Jae?”

“I haven’t asked him if he wants to yet, but I guess so,” Jaehyun answers, then faces Johnny again. “Are you okay, though, Johnny? About Joy?”

Johnny sucks in a breath. “I’m—”

“Hey guys,” Jeno interjects before he can reply, approaching their cubicle out of nowhere. “Mr. Qian is asking for you, Johnny hyung.”

Fuck. First Joy breaking it off with him because of his obvious thing for Jaehyun, and now this. Life hated him.

He stands and smiles grimly at Mark and Jaehyun. “Well, wish me luck, boys.”

“I hope you come back alive, bro,” Mark salutes him as he leaves, following Jeno out of the office. 

The elevator ride is silent, save for Johnny twisting his Rolex round and round his wrist. The last time he’d been to Kun’s office, he’d gone with Jaehyun to submit their mockup posters for approval. They had laughed the whole way there, joking about something dumb Mark said.

Johnny always felt so at ease when Jaehyun was at his side, but now it was just him and his pile of nerves.

Suddenly, he’s standing in front of Kun’s door, and Jeno’s opening it, whispering an encouraging ‘good luck, hyung’ before leaving him alone with their boss.

Johnny inhales shallowly, and Kun doesn’t even bother to look up at him, simply gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he says politely, taking his designated seat. “Um, Jaehyun and I have officially completed the project. We still have a few finalizations to do, but we should be all set to submit it by the deadline. Or, before the deadline, if you’d prefer that.”

Kun slowly raises his head, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “We’re not here to discuss the project, Mr. Suh.”

“Oh,” he blinks. “What are we discussing, then?”

“I’m sure you remember my requirements for you to fulfill,” Kun stares him down, “in order to keep your job.”

Shit. “Yes, sir. I remember.”

“Then tell me, Mr. Suh,” Kun folds his arms over his desk and leans forward. “If you remember so clearly, why am I still looking at this stagnant sales report?"

He slides over a document of Johnny’s monthly sale numbers, showing no upward trend. Falling short, as per usual.

“I…I thought I was doing well,” Johnny murmurs in confusion, thinking back to the sales he’d made earlier in the month. Just last week he had a record number of customers invest in Neo stocks. How had he not made any progress whatsoever?

“I’m afraid that you’ve wasted your second chance, John."

“Wait, sir, I—”

“After you and Mr. Jung see this project through, you will no longer work for this branch,” he says sternly. “I suggest you look into another place of employment. I’ll even write you a recommendation letter, but you cannot come back to our team. This has just been…unacceptable, Mr. Suh.”

Johnny feels like he might be shattering right in front of his boss. “I can work harder, I can. I want to work harder, just let me—”

“You’re fired, Johnny. I’m sorry, but I will not change my mind on this. All you can do is finish out the two weeks, present this project, and leave quietly,” Kun finishes.

“Please,” he begs again, voice straining with desperation.

There’s a flicker of sympathy in Kun’s eyes, but it’s gone as soon as it arrives. “I’m sorry. I gave you a chance, John.”

And with that, he’s promptly sent out of Kun’s office.

Johnny doesn’t know what to think. He feels nauseous, stomach lurching as he goes down the elevator, all the way to the ground floor. People ask him if he’s alright, but he says nothing.

As if on autopilot, he makes his way to the parking garage, and gets into his car. There’s no use going back to the office, not anymore, not even if he has two weeks left. What was the point of any of it?

Johnny wants to scream, but he doesn’t. He opens up his glove compartment, and sifts through the random receipts and gum wrappers to find the box of cigarettes he rarely ever touched, except in moments of weakness and extreme stress.

He turns on his car, cracks the window open slightly, and lights one.

Johnny takes long, slow drags of it, watching the smoke furl around him in delicate swirls, before they dissipate into nothing. It would be a nice distraction—if not for the fact that Johnny’s life felt like that: a beautiful puff that suddenly became nothing.

It was funny, almost. Just days before he’d almost felt content with his life, and now it was suddenly crumbling apart.

God, how could the universe hate him so much? What was he being punished for? Existing?

Johnny chuckles sadly to himself. He wouldn’t blame the universe for that. He hated his existence just as much as it did.

Tears start to brim in his eyes, and he puts his cigarette back between his lips, as if it’ll kill his emotions along with his lungs. It doesn’t really work, but he tries.

Before he can let himself cry, there’s a knock on his window.

“Johnny?” It’s Jaehyun. Even better. “Ten asked me to check on you. He said you seemed upset when you left Kun’s office, and the downstairs secretary said she saw you head out here…are you okay?”

He exhales the smoke upwards, watching it touch his car ceiling and fade away. He wishes he could fade away in this moment. “No.”

Jaehyun looks at the cigarette in between his fingers. “Oh…well, can I sit with you?”

Johnny doesn’t respond, just unlocks the car doors with a click. His co-worker—former co-worker, he supposes—walks over to the passenger side and opens the door, sliding in the seat next to Johnny, like always.

This might be one of the last few times we sit next to each other, Johnny thinks, and promptly shoves the burning stick back into his mouth.

“Do you want one?” he asks, holding out the box to Jaehyun.

The younger man hesitantly takes one, but doesn’t light it. Just holds it, turns it over in his hand. “I don’t, um…I don’t like smoking.”

Johnny snorts. “Yeah, me neither. But some of us have to deal with our stress somehow.”

Jaehyun nods, and quietly puts the cigarette in his pocket. He watches Johnny take a long drag, and coughs when some of the smoke blows in his direction.

“Is this gonna be a problem for you?” he asks gruffly, tapping the cigarette against the edge of his cracked open window, dead ashes falling to the ground.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun says in between coughs. “I can’t help it.”

“You don’t have to be here. I’ll be fine, I just…need a minute.”

“Of course I have to be here,” he insists, frowning. “You’re upset. I’m not just going to leave you alone.”

Johnny takes a final drag of his cigarette before he flicks the butt out the window. “I don’t want to talk about it, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Jaehyun says. “We can just…be.”

Johnny stares at him for a long moment, then picks up another cigarette and lights it. He needs it. He needs the distraction from this, from the warm hope that fills his chest when Jaehyun talks to him like that, from the shame coursing through his core.

He needs something to light everything on fire and burn it all away.

And so, he smokes and Jaehyun sits. They don’t speak, and it’s almost comforting.

But it’s not enough.

He goes home and cries, cracks open a window, and lights one up again. Only he barely gets two puffs out before he thinks of stupid, perfect Jaehyun and his hatred of smoking and puts it out against the glass.

Maybe he should’ve asked Jaehyun for sales advice, like Kun told him to. Maybe he should’ve asked for help a long time ago. But it was too late, now. He’d tried, and it hadn’t been enough.

Nothing he did ever seemed to be enough.

—

He doesn’t talk to Mark or Jaehyun about it. He talks to no one about it, just keeps it to himself. No one needed to know that he’d been fired.

Especially not Jaehyun. They had to do well on the project, if not for Johnny’s sake anymore, for Jaehyun’s. The younger man had worked really hard on it, and telling him that it didn’t matter if they won or not wasn’t fair to him. He wanted Jaehyun to succeed no matter what.

So, he comes in and acts like everything is normal. He ignores Jaehyun’s concerned glances and gives vague responses when Mark or Jaehyun ask him about his meeting with Kun.

It hurts to lie to his friends, but he has to. Just until the project was over.

“Are you guys ready for the party tonight?” Mark asks, spinning his chair in circles. “I heard the board went all out on the alcohol supply. Must’ve been a rough quarter.”

That was an understatement, Johnny thinks.

Fortunately, Kun was still allowing him to attend what was now his last office party. He’d sent him a very kind email telling him that he was still invited, since he was part of the branch family and all.

Now that he thinks about it, maybe Ten had sent that email, and not Kun…but either way, he was still able to show up.

“Lucas is getting off work early to come,” Jaehyun smiles. “He’s kind of nervous."

“He’s met, like, all your work friends already,” Mark shrugs. “He’s got nothing to worry about. Plus, Xiaojun will be there, so he’ll be fine.”

Johnny nods, but isn’t really paying attention. He’s too busy wondering who will take his desk. Maybe Jeno? Or Jaemin? He wonders if they have any sales experience.

“What about you, hyung?” Mark chucks a crumpled ball of paper at his head. “Ready for tonight?”

“Oh, yeah,” he forces a smile. “This is the only time we’re allowed to get shitfaced in the office, after all.”

Mark beams, clapping his hands together. “Now that is the attitude I’m looking for! Tell Lucas he needs to show up with the same energy as Johnny.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, flipping to the second page of the document in front of him. “He does not need to get shitfaced in front of everyone. Jungwoo would never shut up about it, and Kun would probably fire me. I’m only the chief of our department, remember?”

Johnny bites his lip to refrain from saying something about being fired. 

You have to do this, he reminds himself. Just until it’s all over.

He tries to lose himself in Mark and Jaehyun’s conversation, and stop dwelling on his issues for once.

At four, Kun dismisses everyone early to prepare for the party.

Johnny throws on a random black t-shirt, since it’ll just be covered with a jacket anyways, and a pair of skinny jeans. It’s not particularly nice attire, nor professional in the slightest, but he doesn’t care anymore. He’d be gone in a few days time, anyways.

When he arrives back at the office, he immediately starts searching for Mark or Jaehyun.

The room is already packed with people from all over the office; some are familiar and some are completely new to him. He supposes it doesn’t matter anymore, but part of him feels like he should try to remember all these people, before he never sees them again.

As he manages to part his way through the crowded space, he thinks he sees what looks like the back of Mark’s head.

“Hey,” Johnny calls out, reaching forward to tap at his shoulder. “Where’s J—oh.”

The person turns around, and it’s definitely not Mark.

Kun gives him smile that stretches too thin to be genuine. “Mr. Suh. Glad you could make it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to miss out on my last Neo party,” Johnny counters, returning the fake smile.

“Of course,” his former boss nods. “Please, enjoy yourself.”

Johnny almost leaves it at that, but he can’t help himself.

“Do you hate me or something?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Have you hated me this whole time?” Johnny asks. “I’ve never seen you treat anyone here the way you treat me. So what is it? Am I just that incompetent to you? Am I that bad of an employee?”

Kun considers him thoughtfully. “No, Johnny. I don’t hate you. You are—were—one of my favorite employees.”

“Then,” his voice cracks, throat tight with emotion, “what is so fucked up about me?”

Kun is quiet for a moment, and the boom of the bass in the room pounds against Johnny’s head as he waits for an answer.

“You don’t see your own potential, and you doubt yourself because of it,” Kun answers. “You are a great employee, but you could be excellent if you weren’t so concerned with not making mistakes or trying so hard to live up to the expectations you’ve built for yourself. You can’t put your all into your work until you put the same effort into yourself, Johnny, and I think you need time to do that.”

Johnny feels something drip down his cheek. He’s crying, he realizes, wiping away the stray tear.

“I…thank you, sir,” he murmurs.

“It really has been a pleasure working with you, Johnny,” Kun smiles, genuinely. “I can’t wait to see what you do next.”

Johnny smiles and shakes his hand, then walks away in a daze.

What will he do next?

He hadn’t given it much thought, so preoccupied with his anger and disappointment that he didn’t even think about what his next steps would be.  What was he supposed to do now?

“Yo, look who it is!” Mark exclaims, hand clasping around Johnny’s shoulder. He hands Johnny a cup of something that smells strong. “I’ve been looking for you, dude. Drink that, loosen up. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Johnny raises the cup to his lips, and savors the sting in his throat. It’s a welcome distraction from his existential crisis.

“Have you seen Jaehyun anywhere?” he asks, eyes scanning the room for him.

“Nah, he’s probably making out with Lucas somewhere,” Mark shrugs. “Jeno and Jaemin already stole the supply closet out there, by the way. Don’t go in there, whatever you do.”  


Johnny nods, and swallows down the rest of his drink, to which Mark chants ‘chug’ at him excitedly.

“Nice, bro! Want another?”

“Yeah,” he hands over the empty cup with a grimace of a smile. “Trying to get shitfaced, remember?”

He’s not sure how much time he spends with Mark and that cup, getting refill after refill. All he knows is that his head is swimming, and he feels good. Nothing hurts anymore, and it’s nice after the shit week he’s had. Shit month, shit year, really. 

“Okay, I’m cutting you off,” Mark laughs, snatching his cup out of his hand.

“No,” Johnny whines, trying to swipe it out of Mark’s grasp, and failing.

“Yes,” he snorts, then points over Johnny’s shoulder. “Look, there’s Jaehyun. Go show him how drunk you are.”

Johnny smiles when he spots the tuft of Jaehyun’s wonderful hair peeking out just above the crowd. He was really cute. And a good friend. A good, cute friend.

He slowly wanders off in his direction, getting slightly jostled by the crowd of office employees around him, but he trudges forward.

Soon enough, he makes it to Jaehyun.

“Hyunnie,” he greets cheerfully, swaying slightly as he comes towards him.

“Hi, Johnny,” Jaehyun looks him up and down, raising his eyebrows at him in amusement. “Are you feeling okay?"

“I feel great,” he chirps. “Mark told me I should show you how drunk I am!”

Jaehyun laughs. “Well, you’re definitely shitfaced.”

“I know, it’s good,” Johnny smiles lethargically. “I was really sad. Now I feel good.”

Jaehyun frowns. He doesn’t like it when he frowns; there was no dimple when Jaehyun frowned.

“You were sad, Johnny? Why?”

“I don’t think I like myself very much,” he shrugs, then grins again. “But y’know? I like you, Jaehyun. A lot.”

Jaehyun’s still frowning, but his eyes never leave Johnny’s, which is nice.

“Johnny, I think you should have some of this,” the younger man says, pressing a bottle to his lips.

Johnny accepts it, swallowing down the mystery drink with ease. “Oh, this is good! What is this?”

“It’s water.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I finished it, sorry.”

Jaehyun takes the empty bottle from him. “That’s okay.”

“Jae, I think they ran out of vodka,” a deep voice says behind him. “Oh, hey, Johnny!”

Johnny turns around to face Lucas, and his face breaks into a grin. “Lucas! What’s up, dude?”  


“Nothing much,” he chuckles, sliding past him to stand next to Jaehyun. “You good?”

Jaehyun crosses his arms, eyes still on Johnny. “Something’s wrong with him.”

“Nah, I’m great,” he insists. “Usually, I’m pretty shit, but I feel _super_ great about myself right now.”

“See, babe?” Lucas presses his lips to Jaehyun’s temple briefly. “He feels _super_ great. It’s fine.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, and Johnny just wishes his frown would disappear. Maybe he’s the cause of it. He doesn’t want that.

“Look at us!” Johnny decides to yell, slinging one arm around Lucas and the other around Jaehyun. “The happy couple and the almost mistake. Life’s funny, huh?”

Jaehyun squints at him, mouth still drawn into that frown, whereas Lucas tosses his head back in laughter.

“Dude, you’re so drunk,” Lucas pats at his shoulder. “How many have you had?”

“I don’t know!” Johnny exclaims. “But y’know, what I do know is that I’m happy for you, my man. Seriously, you’re a great guy. I wish I was as great as you.”

Lucas grins. “Thanks, hyung. You’re great too, though.”

“Oh no,” he shakes his head. “I’m not. I’m pretty bad, actually.”

Suddenly, Jaehyun reaches up and shoves Johnny’s arm off his shoulders, and storms away.

“Jaehyun?” he calls out after him, but gets no response. Johnny turns back to Lucas. “Is he okay?”

He shrugs. “I’m sure he’s fine, man. He’s just in a mood. I’ll go talk to him once he’s cooled off.”

Johnny nods, slowly so he doesn’t make himself dizzy, but he still feels off. Like he shouldn’t just wait for Jaehyun. Like someone should go after him.

But before he can voice this to Lucas, the guy’s already headed towards Xiaojun, leaving Johnny and his alcohol-muddled brain alone.

Fine, he decides. He’ll just go after him instead.

Johnny follows the direction he thinks Jaehyun wandered off in, putting more trust than he should into his staggered, swaying steps.

His feet lead him outside, in front of the office building. At first glance, there’s nothing out here except for him, a few cars, and the night sky.

Johnny blinks up at the stars in awe, when he hears a faint sound. Something's being crushed maybe, but he could be wrong. Everything feels like it’s underwater, after all.

He follows the noise as best as he can, until he sees a figure beneath a streetlight, grinding their shoe against the pavement with vigor.

“Hey,” Johnny calls out. “What are you doing?”

The figure raises their head. It’s Jaehyun.

“Johnny,” he exhales, breath visible in the evening chill. “Go back inside.”

“What are you doing, Jaehyun-ah?” he repeats, ignoring his command.

Jaehyun shuts his eyes like he’s in pain. “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay,” Johnny stops and stands next to him beneath the streetlight. “What are you doing, Hyun? With your shoe?”

“I’m putting out a cigarette, if you must know,” Jaehyun mutters, and Johnny sees the tendrils of smoke rise when he finally lifts his foot away.

He frowns. “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“I don’t,” Jaehyun laughs, but Johnny doesn’t think it sounds like a good laugh. “I hate it. Smoking.”

“I know, I remember,” he replies. “But I smoke. Sometimes.”

Jaehyun sighs and looks up at him. His eyes are really pretty in the glow of the streetlight.

“Yeah, I know you do. And I hate it,” Jaehyun looks up and away from him, clenching his fists. “I hate it. I hate you.”

Even Johnny's drunken state cannot numb the sting of those words. He feels small, suddenly. He wants to back into a corner, and maybe cry. He feels an overwhelming urge to cry.

“Oh,” he says sadly, staring at a nearby car instead of Jaehyun’s pretty, pretty eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I can be better.”

“That’s the thing!” Jaehyun outbursts, groaning into his hands. “God, you just don’t get it, do you?”

Johnny pouts in confusion. With every word Jaehyun speaks, the blurred edges of his mind start to become much clearer.

“I don’t understand,” Jaehyun continues, “how you can’t just see what I see. I see…so much in you, Johnny. You are so kindhearted, so wonderful, and fucking talented! You’re a good person, one of the best people I’ve ever met, and…”

Johnny gently places a hand on Jaehyun’s forearm when he trails off. “Hyunnie?”

“And you’re drunk,” Jaehyun finally says, running a hand through his fluff of hair. “You’re drunk, and I should be saying this to sober you. Hell, I should’ve said all of this a long time ago, but you just…you’re so insistent. For some reason, you just can’t believe that you deserve things. Why can’t you?”

He takes his hand away from Jaehyun. “I don’t know.”

Jaehyun reaches for his hand, and his touch is warm and nice. Johnny wonders if he should even dare to let himself absorb his warmth, or tear out of his grasp. Jaehyun probably needed that warmth more than him.

Before he can decide, Jaehyun’s squeezing his hand tightly.

“This is the problem, this is why I can’t stand you,” Jaehyun gripes. “You don’t believe in yourself, Johnny, and you should. You should see yourself the way others see you, the way I see you, but you don’t. You won’t let yourself.”

“I’m sorry."

“Stop being sorry!” Jaehyun cries, reaching up with his other hand to cup at Johnny’s face. “I can’t make you like yourself, and I hate it. I hate you for it. We could be so happy together…but you won’t let yourself have it. Because you don’t believe you deserve it.”

“I don’t,” Johnny whispers.

“But you do,” the younger man insists. “What do I have to do to help you see that?”

Johnny doesn’t say anything. He feels like a single breath could send the dominos falling.

Jaehyun takes his face in between both of his hands, and gazes up at him with his pretty, glistening eyes.

“Johnny, just tell me,” he pleads softly. “Please. I just want you—“

Maybe the dominos were already falling, all along.

“Kiss me,” Johnny says.

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at him, doesn’t hesitate.

He leans up and kisses Johnny heatedly, as if trying to fit a thousand unsaid words into his mouth. Johnny takes and takes what Jaehyun gives him, finally letting himself absorb the warmth of it.

And the last domino falls into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert lyrics to wayv's domino here*


	3. dream the same dream (our own pandora's box)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny puts out the past, and starts a new flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: I'm obviously not a therapist so pls take johnny's therapy scenes here w a grain of salt!

Johnny wakes up the next morning with his head throbbing.

He’s sprawled out on a bed, that much he’s aware of. Yet, he can’t seem to recall how he got here or whose bed this is.

The last thing he remembers is how soft Jaehyun’s lips were against his.

And fuck. They kissed last night. Jaehyun _kissed_ him.

Johnny sits up abruptly at the thought, and immediately regrets it. He groans, white light shining into his eyes and his head screaming at him. 

“Shh, don’t wake him up,” hisses a familiar voice.

He follows the direction of the voice, and through his squinted eyes, he can just make out Mark’s blurry figure.

“Mark?” he asks, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “How…?”  


Mark presses his pointer finger to his lips, motioning for Johnny to be quiet. Then, he jerks his head forward, towards the end of the bed.

Johnny looks down, and sees a blanket draped around a curled up figure, lying at the bottom of the same bed as him.

It’s Jaehyun, he realizes.

“I guess you might not remember,” Mark whispers, approaching his bedside with a glass of water and aspirin in hand. “When the party was ending, I went looking for you, since you weren’t answering your phone. Jaehyun didn’t answer me either, so I tried to find Lucas, but I couldn’t.”

Johnny looks away. He’d completely forgotten about Lucas. Shit.

“…And then I found you two on a bench a few blocks away from the office,” Mark continues. “You were asleep on Jaehyun’s shoulder, and he seemed kind of spaced out, so I offered to take you home. But he insisted on coming with, so,” he shrugs.

“Really?” Johnny asks in a hushed voice. “Why didn’t he go with Lucas?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t really question it. I was too busy making sure you didn’t puke in my car,” his best friend says, passing him the water and pills. “Here, take these.”

As he swallows them down with ease, he tries to piece together what he remembers from last night.

Johnny remembers every word of what Kun had said to him. Everything with Mark was pretty much a haze. He vaguely remembers encountering Lucas and Jaehyun, but what stands out is finding Jaehyun with a cigarette beneath his shoe.

Suddenly, Jaehyun’s harsh words and frustrated voice ring in his ears. Jaehyun telling Johnny that he hated him. Hated him and his insecurities and self-doubt.

And then, for fuck’s sake, he’d asked Jaehyun to kiss him. Kiss him, like that was the solution. Like it didn’t make things a complete mess.

How could he have forgotten Lucas? Why didn’t Jaehyun go home with him?

Johnny winces as his head throbs again.

“How about you go back to sleep, and I’ll order breakfast for us, yeah?” Mark suggests. “I’ll wake you both when it gets here.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” he murmurs, already throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the sun glaring at him through the blinds. “Thanks, dude. I owe you.”

“I know you do.”

Mark quietly shuts the door behind him, and Johnny lets his breathing even out again.

Except, before he can fall back asleep, there’s movement at the end of the bed.

Jaehyun groans quietly, probably stretching his limbs if the loud ‘pop’ sound and the shift in the mattress were anything to go by. Then something brushes against Johnny’s feet, and all the moving stops.

“Johnny?” he calls faintly. “Are you awake?”

He sighs and takes his arm off his face, letting it fall to his side. “Unfortunately. My head is killing me.”

“I figured,” Jaehyun laughs. “You were wasted last night.”

Johnny groggily opens his eyes to find Jaehyun sat up on the bottom of the bed, hair tousled. A hint of collarbone peeks out from under the blanket bunched around him, and Johnny smiles at the sight.

“What are you smiling about?” Jaehyun asks, head tilting cutely. God, he just wanted to kiss him all over again.

“Nothing,” Johnny blurts out. He needs to stop thinking of Jaehyun like that. The guy was in a committed relationship, after all. It was just wrong.

“Okay,” Jaehyun eyes him weirdly, then shivers, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. “God, it’s cold in here. Does Mark not believe in heating or something?”

Before Johnny can think better of it, he pats at the empty space next to him. “Lay under here.”

Jaehyun scrambles up the bed, ditching his blanket entirely as he crawls under the comforter with Johnny. Only, as he leaves the blanket behind, he uncovers what had been hidden beneath it.

He was shirtless.

Johnny’s breath hitches as he stares at Jaehyun’s built chest, and the way the muscles there flex with his every movement. He was cute and had a great body and it felt so, so right to have him in bed, at his side.

Relationship, he forces himself to remember. Lucas. Jaehyun's boyfriend, Lucas.

“So,” Jaehyun says once he settles beneath the sheets, “what do you remember about the party?”

“I remember mostly everything, I think,” he murmurs, trying to keep his eyes trained on Jaehyun’s face and not his exposed skin. “Don’t know how many drinks Mark gave me, though.”

Jaehyun looks away, asking hesitantly, “And…do you remember, um, our conversation?”

“You smoked a cigarette.”

“Yeah, I tried to,” he sighs. “But I couldn’t. I found it in my coat pocket, and I was upset, and you said it helped you when you were stressed. I asked a stranger that was smoking nearby if she would light it for me. I lasted a good five seconds before I started coughing, and then I started crying, and I think that scared the lady so much that she left.”

Johnny frowns, and wants to reach up and run his fingers through Jaehyun’s hair to soothe him, but he can’t. Relationship, Lucas.

“You were upset,” Johnny begins, “because of me. I remember. You said you hated me.”

Jaehyun closes his eyes. “I…yes. And no.”

Johnny’s face scrunches in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t hate _you_ , Johnny,” he explains. “I hate that you hate you. That’s what I was trying to say. You constantly underestimate yourself, and you always make things more difficult than they need to be, like you’re trying to sabotage yourself. And I hate that. Why do you have to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, voice barely a whisper. “I used to believe in myself, before.”

“Before what?”

“Before Neo,” he says, over at the window as the truth seeps out of him. “Before I moved to South Korea, before I became an adult, before I…”

Jaehyun stares at him as he trails off. “Before you…?”

“Before I met you.”

Suddenly, the bed feels much colder than before, even though they were both in it, together.

“I see,” Jaehyun mutters, eyes downcast.

Johnny reaches out to touch his arm, to make him look at him. “No, Jaehyun, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, it’s exactly what you meant,” he huffs, lifting the comforter off his body, going to slide out of the bed. “I’m the reason why you’re miserable.“

“No, just,” Johnny wraps his hand around Jaehyun’s wrist to stop him from leaving. “Just listen. Hear me out, okay? And then you can go, if you want.”

Jaehyun pauses, and reluctantly settles down next to him again.

“Fine.”

Johnny takes a deep breath, and begins.

“When you came to the office, I hated you,” he admits. “You had come from a giant company to work for our smaller one, and you made everyone fall in love with you within days. You were younger than me, more successful than me. You had what I’d been trying my whole life to achieve. And I resented the hell out of you for it.”

Jaehyun frowns. “Johnny…”

“And it’s not like the insecurities hadn’t been there before,” he continues, “but yeah, you made me realize things were missing in my life. Things I’d always wanted. It’s not your fault by any means, but it gave me a pretty rude awakening…and I have no idea how to deal with it. I don’t know how to not be like this. I don’t want to be like this.”

Jaehyun goes quiet for a moment, and the air feels so fragile Johnny thinks it might break.

“Okay,” the younger man exhales finally. “You know it’s an issue, and you want to change. That’s a good start.”

Johnny lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “You think?”

“I mean, I’m no therapist,” Jaehyun replies, “but I’d say being aware you have a problem is a good first step.”

That sends the gears in Johnny’s mind turning.

“Maybe…maybe I should see a therapist?” he wonders aloud. “Maybe that’s my second step.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Jaehyun shrugs. “I have the number of my old therapist, if you want it.”

Johnny raises an eyebrow at him. “You went to therapy?”

“For a while,” he answers. “I struggled with massive insecurities too—but image issues. I struggled with my appearance growing up, and it didn’t change as I got older. Or at least, not until I finally got help.”

He really doesn’t know how someone as beautiful as Jaehyun couldn’t like himself, but he supposes everyone battles some internal struggle. Plus, it was sort of relieving (as selfish as it was) to know that he’d struggled with something similar, that he wasn’t as perfect as Johnny originally perceived.

“Wow,” Johnny murmurs, trying yet again not to ogle Jaehyun’s shapely body and biting his tongue so he won’t compliment his every facial feature.

“Yeah, not as perfect as you thought, huh?” Jaehyun jokes. “Anyways, I’ll text you his office’s number.”

“Thanks, Jaehyun. I appreciate it, everything.”

“It’s no problem,” Jaehyun smiles, then his face slowly falls. “Hey, by the way…do you remember anything else from last night? From our conversation, I mean.”

Johnny knows he’s hinting at the kiss.

And he knows he can’t do this.

“No,” Johnny lies. “I think all the alcohol went to my head after that. Did I pass out or something? Oh god, I didn’t puke on you, did I?”

“No, no,” Jaehyun chuckles, mouth twisted into a sad smile. “Nothing like that. We just talked, and then found a bench to sit on. You fell asleep before Mark found us there. That’s all.”

And Johnny’s chest pangs with guilt, but he can’t do this. He has to lie. He can’t be the homewrecker, he can’t ruin their already fragile friendship.

It was just a kiss, he tries to tell himself. One drunken mistake. No one has to know.

Lucas. Relationship.

—

During Johnny’s last Tuesday working at Neo (not that anyone knows that), Kun calls for him and Jaehyun to meet him in his office.

“I had my first two appointments with Chan,” Johnny tells Jaehyun when they get into the elevator together.

“Oh really? How’d they go?”

“Good,” he nods. “He’s easy to talk to. He advised me on different methods to restructure my perception of myself. I’m supposed to question my negative thoughts about myself, instead of just accepting them as truths. I think…it might actually be working.”

Jaehyun breaks into a grin. “That’s really good, Johnny! I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah, it’s a start,” he smiles back softly. “Seriously, thank you. I, um, really needed this.”

“Hey, no need to thank me,” Jaehyun says humbly. “This is all you.”

The elevator dings when they finally reach the fifth floor, and they step off of it together.

For once, Johnny’s not nervous at all when they get to Kun’s office. He’d already been fired, so the worst of the worst had already happened. What was there to fear?

Ten opens the door for them when they knock. “Come in,” he smiles.

Kun’s standing behind his desk when they enter, a rare smile spread across his face. “Johnny, Jaehyun! Ready for the big weekend?”

On Friday, the three of them—Kun, Jaehyun, and Johnny—were getting on a flight to Seoul, headed to Neo’s headquarters to finally present their project to the advertising board. 

“As ready as we’ll ever be, sir,” Jaehyun says politely. “Hopefully we’ll make the branch proud.”

Kun waves his hand dismissively. “I’m already proud. Your work looks excellent. You two will conquer the other branches, no doubt.”

Jaehyun’s eyes widen at his boss’s optimism, while Johnny simply grins and says, “Thank you, sir. We’ll do our best.”

“I’d like to take you both out for dinner on Thursday,” Kun offers, “in celebration of your efforts. My treat.”

“That would be, uh, great, sir,” Jaehyun stammers, stunned by his sudden generosity.

“Great! Just come to my office once work ends,” Kun says, then looks towards the corner. “Ten, do you want to join us? For dinner?”

They all turn to look at the assistant, who blinks in surprise.

“Certainly, sir,” Ten replies, shooting Kun a wide smile.

“Excellent,” Kun murmurs, more to himself than anything, before clearing his throat. He straightens his posture, like he suddenly remembered that he wasn’t the only one in the room. “Well, see you both on Thursday, then!”

As soon as the office door shuts behind them, Jaehyun turns to him.

“That was…weird,” he says. “I’ve never seen Kun like that.”

“Me neither,” Johnny muses. “Do you think he’s into Ten?”

Jaehyun scrunches up his nose. “What? No way. They’ve been working together all this time, I think we’d know if they were into each other.”

“I don’t know…how do we know they’ve been working and not doing other things behind that closed door?” Johnny asks, gesturing to the very closed door behind them.

“Ew!” Jaehyun exclaims in disgust, shoving at Johnny’s side. “Don’t be gross! We have to _eat_ with the two of them.”

Johnny laughs and throws his arm around Jaehyun’s shoulders as they walk back to the elevators. “Ah, Hyunnie. You’re too innocent.”

“Whatever,” Jaehyun grumbles as they step into the first one that opens. “At least I’m not gross.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, and Johnny leaves his arm around Jaehyun as they ride the elevator back to their floor.

For a moment, he lets himself bask in his warmth. Breathe in the sweet, dark scent of his cologne. He lets himself imagine, and for once, doesn’t feel guilty for it. He doesn’t punish himself for it.

Johnny takes his arm away from him when the elevator doors open, and exits back into reality.

—

“I did something yesterday,” Johnny begins. “Something that normally I’d tell myself I don’t deserve, or be really unkind to myself about it. But instead…I let myself take it in.”

He’s in his third therapy session, his last for this week.

“Okay,” Chan says slowly. “When you engage in this activity, why do you normally feel guilty about it?”

Johnny chews at his bottom lip nervously. “Well, I was being affectionate with a friend…and he has a boyfriend already.”

“Are you normally affectionate with him? Or have things changed because he’s seeing someone?”

Johnny sucks in a breath. “We’re not…we’ve never been that close of friends?”

“Alright,” he hums thoughtfully. “Has the nature of the relationship eve—”

“Look, I kissed him, okay?” Johnny reveals, tired of keeping it to himself. “I asked him to kiss me, and he did it. But I was drunk, and he has a boyfriend, so I lied and he doesn’t know that I remember we kissed and—”

Chan holds up a hand. “Okay, Johnny, okay. Let’s slow down for a second, yeah? Tell me what happened with your friend, starting from the beginning.”

And so, he does. He tells him everything, starting with Jaehyun’s first day at Neo all the way to just yesterday. Tells him about how his feelings of inadequacy towards his co-worker suddenly turned to something more, something deeper.

It feels good to get it all off his chest after all this time. It was like a weight holding him back, and there’d been so many times he’d felt compelled to just yell to someone about it. Now, he’d finally done it, without yelling at all.

When he finishes, Chan inhales deeply, tapping his pencil against the pad of paper on his lap.

“This relationship is clearly very important to you, Johnny,” he says finally.

“It is,” Johnny nods. “He…even as just a friend, he’s really important to me.”

“I can tell. But I can also tell that he’s part of the reason why you carry so much guilt and self-hatred,” Chan points out. “You hated him, and then ended up liking him, and I think you feel guilty for mistaking his character in the beginning. And the constant denial and suppressing of your feelings, whether platonic or otherwise, has lead you to stop feeling freely. Like you’re afraid to let yourself feel emotions you can’t control, and punish yourself for doing it.”

“That’s…true,” he admits. “But it’s not his fault.”

“No, of course not,” the therapist agrees. “This stems from your need to act strong during childhood, like we talked about in your previous sessions.”

“Right,” Johnny sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “So, how do I correct this? How do I…stop feeling guilty for feeling?”

“I think we should start small, by resolving your friendship with your co-worker,” Chan advises. “You need to come clean, and tell him you remember the kiss.”

“What?” Johnny lifts his head, eyes wide. “No way. I can’t do that. I lied to him, and he’s going to hate me for that. And did I mention he was in a committed relationship? And I just asked him to kiss me, like he didn’t have a boyfriend?”

“I understand the circumstances,” he replies, voice irritatingly soothing. “Johnny, you can’t expect to move past this with your friend unless you’re honest with him. Otherwise, you’ll feel guilt every time you look at him.”

Johnny frowns. “But…it’s going to upset him.”

“It’s likely that he won’t react positively, yes, but part of you being open with your emotions is opening yourself up to hurt. This will hurt,” Chan predicts, “but it’s something you need to own up to. Keeping this to yourself is not dealing with it healthily. If you want to feel freely, you have to be able to actually _deal_ with your feelings as well.”

He sighs, taking the words in. The thought of telling Jaehyun the truth put his stomach in knots, but he supposes Chan is right.

“I guess that makes sense,” he acquiesces, then looks up worriedly at him. “What if it goes really badly, and then I have to spend the whole weekend in Seoul with him?”

“Then you can give me a call,” Chan hands him a slip of paper with his work phone number on it, “and talk to me about it. Anytime, I’ll answer.”

“Wow, I…thank you,” Johnny says gratefully, slipping the paper into his pocket. It makes him feel better to know that, at least if he fucks up, he had someone to support him unconditionally.

“Of course, you’re my client,” he smiles widely. “I’m here to help you, Johnny. I believe that you can do this. Now, all you have to do is believe in yourself.”

Right, he thinks, standing to shake Chan’s hand and leave. Just believe in himself.

—

As he sits next to Jaehyun in the back of Kun’s fancy sports car, carefully maintaining a seat of space between them, he finds it difficult to believe in himself at all.

He decided to wait until tonight, Thursday night, to tell Jaehyun about everything. That way, they’d get it all out there before Seoul.

All he had to do was find the right timing, he thinks, wiping his clammy hands against his dress slacks. And believe in himself. Simple.

“This is the place,” Kun says, pulling up to the curb of a street Johnny quickly identifies as one of the richer areas of the city. There’s a restaurant with bright green lights shining in the distance, and Johnny vaguely recalls seeing a local article about the place.

“Isn’t this, like, a Michelin star restaurant?” he asks, staring at it through the windshield.

Kun puts the car into park. “Indeed, Mr. Suh. Just one, but it’s pretty new still. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.”

“Cool,” Johnny murmurs in a small voice. He should’ve cashed his last paycheck before this.

As if he could read his mind, Kun cranes his neck to look back at him.

“Don’t concern yourself with the cost,” he smiles, unlocking the car doors as he does. “Let’s go have a nice evening, shall we?”

Kun and Ten take the lead, with Jaehyun and Johnny trailing behind them, slight distancing themselves. When they’re out of earshot, Johnny whispers to Jaehyun.

“5000 won they’re together,” he challenges.

Jaehyun smirks. “Fine, I’ll take that bet.”

“You’ll regret this,” Johnny smirks back. “Watch them leave together. Or ditch us entirely. Oh, or we’ll catch them playing footsie underneath the table!”

“Shut up,” Jaehyun laughs brightly, batting at his arm. “You’re so gonna lose, Suh.”

The four of them are seated as soon as they arrive at the front of the restaurant, since Kun had made reservations prior. They’re taken to a table in the back, a much quieter area compared to the flashy exterior. It reminds Johnny of their own secluded corner back at the office.

It’s then and there that he realizes today was his last day to work in that corner, in his own cubicle, alongside Jaehyun and Mark.

He immediately opens up his menu to keep himself from tearing up, or something embarrassing like that.

“I hope you’re both packed and ready for Seoul,” Kun says, browsing through the menu already.

“Of course, sir,” Jaehyun beams at his boss across the table. “I even packed an extra toothbrush, just in case.”  


Johnny laughs. “I packed, but it’s mostly camera equipment and clothes. I haven’t been to Seoul in a while. I figure it’s a great place to test out the new film camera my dad gifted me.”

“Oh, do you like photography and film and stuff?” Ten asks. “I mean, Kun told me about the filmed thing you guys did for the project. Was that you?”

Beneath the table, Johnny nudges Jaehyun’s side lightly, as if to say ‘See? Proof.’

“Yeah,” he nods. “It’s just a hobby, but I like working with cameras.”

“Ah, that’s really cool,” Ten muses. “I’ve always wanted to get into photography.”

Kun turns to his left, and raises an eyebrow at Ten. “Really? I didn’t know that about you.”  


Jaehyun’s elbow jabs at Johnny’s side, and he spots his dimpled smirk out of the corner of his eye. Competitive ass.

“…Well, anyways, enough rambling about photos,” Ten is saying when he tunes back into the conversation. “Jaehyun, what about you? Any hobbies, or are you too busy spending time with that boyfriend of yours? Lucas is his name, right?”

“Ten…” Kun warns. “Don’t invade the kid’s privacy.”

“What? We met him at the office party,” the assistant counters. “It’s okay to ask about someone we’ve met.”

“No, it’s okay, um…” Jaehyun’s eyes dart back down to the menu. “We actually broke up.”

Johnny nearly chokes on nothing. “What?”

“Oh no,” Ten frowns, reaching across the table to pat Jaehyun’s hand sympathetically. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” Jaehyun shrugs. “It was mutual. Both of us were more drawn to…other people.”

Ten is saying something to Jaehyun, but Johnny’s not listening. His head was spinning.

Other people. The kiss. No Lucas, no relationship.

All throughout dinner, it’s all he can think about. His heart practically leaps with hope with every brush of Jaehyun’s hand against his, or the gentle glances Jaehyun keeps throwing his way. His mind keeps asking what if, what if, what if…

It almost makes him forget that he has to come clean about his lie.

Fuck.

“Alright, let me go up front and pay for all this,” Kun says at the end of the meal.

“I’ll come with you,” Ten offers instantly, already sliding out of the booth. “I’m in desperate need of a dinner mint.”

Johnny shoots Jaehyun a look at the odd excuse.

“We’ll meet you guys at the car,” Kun smiles as they both head towards the restaurant front, leaving Johnny and Jaehyun to themselves.

“I’m not sure we’ll want to get in that car,” Johnny jokes, taking his crumpled napkin off his lap and setting it on the table. He naturally adjusts his position to face Jaehyun, like he was a magnet drawn to him.

“Maybe Ten just has an affinity for dinner mints,” Jaehyun teases, leaning forward to swat at his thigh. “You don’t know.”  


They laugh together, and Jaehyun’s bright smile makes his chest fill with a warm, golden feeling. He was so close, and his heat radiates onto him. He wants to soak up the warmth of it, drink it in and stay in the feeling forever, but he can’t.

Not when his guilt is weighing on him, like overcast clouds quelling the sun’s rays.

It was time.

“Hyun,” he says, face schooled into something more serious. “I need to tell you something.”

Jaehyun’s brow furrows with concern. “Okay. What is it?”

Johnny swallows. “That night, the night of the party? I remember…most things. Except Mark and the drinks.”  


“I know,” Jaehyun frowns, confused now. “You told me that already.”

“Yeah, but, what I’m saying is,” he runs a hand through his hair in distress. “Fuck. I lied, okay? I lied to you.”

“What? What do you mean, Johnny?”

“I remember our conversation,” he reveals finally. “All of it.”

Jaehyun stares at him for a long moment, not saying anything. Johnny feels like everything around them could shatter with a single breath. 

“So, you remember…?” Jaehyun trails off.

“The kiss?” Johnny finishes. “I remember. I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.”

Jaehyun goes quiet again, turning his head to stare at the table instead of Johnny, gaze unfocused. His jaw keeps clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching. 

“Look, Jaehyun, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I was scared, because you were still with Lucas, and I…I kind of made it happen. I was the one who asked you to kiss me. I figured it was easier for all of us if I just…pretended not to know.”

Jaehyun faces him again, narrowing his eyes at Johnny.

“I broke up with him right after it happened.”

Johnny’s lips part in shock. “You…what?”

“After we kissed, I pulled away and you said you felt sleepy. I walked you to a bench I’d spotted, and we sat there together. You fell asleep on my shoulder, and I was about to call for a car, when Lucas showed up. He’d been looking for me,” Jaehyun explains. 

Johnny thinks back to that night, trying to see if he could remember any part of this, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

It was like nothing else mattered to his drunken self after Jaehyun had kissed him.

“He looked at you, and said ‘I knew it.’ He told me that he knew I…liked you, even from that first night, at that one club,” Jaehyun reveals. “And he said it was okay, because he realized he was in love with someone else all this time. That the two of us just needed the closure before we could move on, and now, we could finally move on.”  


“So I thought,” Jaehyun goes on, “the next morning, you’d remember the kiss and see me and we’d be happy. That that would be the end of me pretending to just be your friend. But you didn’t remember.”

Jaehyun looks at him with big, watery eyes, and Johnny thinks he might feel more guilty than before.

“We could’ve been happy, but you lied.”

“I know, and I’m sorry…but I had to lie,” Johnny insists. “I thought you were still with Lucas all this time, and I felt guilty, because I asked you to kiss me—”

“Yes, but _I_ kissed _you_ , Johnny!” Jaehyun exclaims. “I was the one who kissed you. If I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to do as you’d asked. But I did. I made that choice, not you. You had nothing to feel guilty for!”

“I thought I’d made you cheat on your boyfriend, Jaehyun,” he sighs. “I had every reason to feel guilty for that.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “If you’d just been honest with me from the start, you would’ve known. I would’ve told you about Lucas, and things would be great.”

“I just didn’t want you to fuck up your great relationship because of me,” Johnny admits. “I’m a mess, Hyunnie. You don’t want a mess.”

“You don’t get to decide what I want,” Jaehyun seethes. “And, if you must know, I didn’t have a great relationship with Lucas, because I wanted to be with you the whole time."  


Johnny looks away. “Were you ever even going to tell me you broke up with him? I thought we were friends, at least. Friends tell each other about their breakups.”

“Friends also tell each other the truth,” he huffs, then laughs humorlessly. “Fuck. I broke up with him for you. I kissed you. I…god, I’ve just embarrassed myself, haven’t I? You don’t even want me back.”

“I do want you.”

“Then why won’t you let yourself have me?” Jaehyun asks, voice straining with effort. “It doesn’t have to be this hard, Johnny.”

“I don’t…” Johnny murmurs. “I don’t know. I don’t know why.”

Jaehyun looks at him, hard, for a moment. Then, he sighs and slides out of the booth.

“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Jaehyun, wait—“ He tries to reach out, to prevent him from leaving.

The younger man is a step ahead of him, and avoids him easily. “I need some space, John. We can talk tomorrow, just…not now. I need to think.”

All Johnny can do is watch him leave.

He waits a few minutes before he exits the restaurant, and stands outside in the evening chill alone, waiting for his Uber to arrive.

As Johnny stands there, mind shouting endlessly at him, he notices two people kissing against a car in the distance.

It’s Ten and Kun, he realizes.

“5000 won for me,” Johnny mutters to himself, dragging his eyes away from the couple and staring blankly at the cars passing by.

He really wishes he had a cigarette.

—

It’s raining when they arrive at their airport terminal the next day, ready to depart for Seoul.

Standing in line to board the plane,  Johnny tests the waters by offering Jaehyun a small smile, but the younger man simply stares down at his passport. He won’t lie—it stings. A lot.

Luckily, when they get on the plane, he’s assigned the window seat, and Kun sits next to him, in the middle seat, with Jaehyun taking the aisle.

He actively avoids eye contact with Jaehyun, searching through the airline’s movie catalog, and flipping through the magazine shoved in the seat pocket. 

It only holds his attention for so long, though. As soon as he sees that Kun is asleep, he chances a look at Jaehyun over their boss’s head.

Jaehyun’ s eyes are already on him, but dart away quickly when Johnny meets his gaze.

He waits, hoping that Jaehyun will look at him again if he stares long enough, but he doesn’t.

Johnny lets out a heavy sigh, and turns to watch stray raindrops cascade down the plane window, instead. He falls into a short, restless sleep, head against the window.

If only, he thinks before he drifts off, he could wash away his mistakes with the rain.

—

After they touch down in Seoul, they take a convertible (that Kun had already reserved) to their hotel. Johnny spends majority of the drive staring out the window, and making sure his limbs didn’t accidentally brush against Jaehyun’s, doing his best to give Jaehyun the space he so clearly desires.

All through the car ride, he worries. They need to talk today and clear things up, only Johnny has no idea what to say in order to do that. He couldn’t fuck this up.

This feels like his last chance to keep Jaehyun in his life, so he had to say the right thing. 

So, as soon as they arrive at the hotel and enter the lobby, Johnny steps aside and makes an emergency call.

“Hello, Johnny,” his therapist says upon answering. “How are things going so far?”

“Terrible,” Johnny confesses, running a hand through his hair. “He won’t even look at me. I think he hates me?”

“That’s just your overthinking coming into play,” Chan justifies. “When you told him the truth, he was upset, right?”  
  
Johnny hums an affirmative. “He told me he broke up with his boyfriend after it happened…I had no idea. We argued back and forth, and I tried to explain that I’d lied to protect him and his relationship, but he didn’t get that. Then, he asked me why I can’t just…let myself have him? And I said I didn’t know.”  


“I see. Have you spoken with him today?”

“I, uh, haven’t had the chance,” Johnny mutters. “I’m hoping to, but I still don’t know what to say. What if what I say isn’t good enough, and I can’t fix this? And then Jaehyun will hate me forever, and I—”

“Johnny,” he interjects. “Just speak from the heart, and tell him honestly how you feel. That’s all you can do in this situation. You can’t control how he reacts to it, you can only be responsible for your own words and actions. Just say your piece to him, and then we can deal with it from there, okay?”

Johnny shuts his eyes, and inhales deeply. “Okay. Thank you.”

“No problem. Call me if you need me, alright? You can do this, Johnny.”

After Chan ends the call, Johnny slides his phone back into his pocket, and joins Kun and Jaehyun at the hotel’s front desk.

Neither of them look particularly pleased when he shows up; Jaehyun’s got a scowl on his face and Kun’s gesturing angrily to the person behind the desk, which only adds to the uneasy, sinking feeling that’d been haunting Johnny all day.

“What’s going on?” he asks Jaehyun, making sure to stop a few feet away from him to maintain distance.

“We were supposed to have three separate rooms, but there’s only two,” Jaehyun grumbles. “A double and a single.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, watching as Kun takes three room keys from the hotel employee, and walking back towards them with his shoulders sagging in defeat.

“I tried my best, but all the other rooms are booked. Two of us will have to share,” Kun sighs. “I guess the company either failed to book three singles, or the hotel just made a mistake.”

Jaehyun hoists his bag higher on his shoulder. “Well, no way to change it now, I suppose.”

“Unfortunately no,” Kun sighs again, then raises his hand that’s holding the three keycards. “Who wants to share?”

Johnny considers the circumstances of sharing with both of the men next to him. 

If he roomed with Kun, he’d have to deal with the awkwardness of sharing a bedroom with the man who’d fired him. But if he roomed with Jaehyun, he’d have to deal with so much more. It was complicated either way he looked at it.

“I want the single,” Johnny and Jaehyun say at the same time, then turn to glare at one another.

“Okay,” Kun says slowly, eyeing the two of them strangely. “Well, only one of us can have the single…I don’t mind sharing, but you two will have to decide who comes with me.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes, and pulls Johnny by the sleeve over to the side, out of earshot from Kun. 

“Give me the room,” he demands.

Johnny narrows his eyes at him. “Why should you get it? Kun likes you more than me, you share with him.”

“I need to be alone this weekend,” Jaehyun insists. “You agreed to give me space, so give it to me.”

“I never agreed to anything. Let me have the room, and I’ll buy you dinner for the whole weekend.”

“I can buy my own dinner, thanks. That room is mine.”

“No, it’s not,” Johnny grits out. “It’s mine.”

“It’s mine.”

“Mine.”

“Mine!”

“Jaehyun…”

“Johnny!”

As soon as their voices begin to raise, Kun hurries over to them, standing in between both men to separate them.

“Alright gentlemen, let’s settle this fair and square,” Kun says calmly, “with a game of rock paper scissors. Winner takes the single.” He sticks out his arm, hand shaped into a fist already.

Johnny keeps his glare trained on Jaehyun, holding out his own fist to join Kun. Jaehyun reluctantly follows them, rolling his eyes as he does so.

“Okay, on shoot. Rock,” Kun chants, “paper, scissors…shoot.”

Shoot, indeed.

Johnny looks down to find that he and Jaehyun had both played scissors, whereas Kun was still holding out his fist—rock.

They both lost.

“I guess that settles it,” Kun says, holding out the two room keys with matching numbers on them. “Here are your keys.”

“Thanks,” Jaehyun mutters sarcastically, snatching the card out of his boss’s hand. 

Johnny plucks the other one out of Kun’s grasp, briefly considering the pros and cons of sleeping elsewhere in the hotel. The couches in the lobby didn’t seem so bad.

“If you two want, we should have drinks at the hotel bar later,” Kun suggests, nodding in the direction of said bar. “Sometime after dinner? I would offer to treat you both, but I’m meeting with some of the other branch managers tonight.”

“Sounds great,” Jaehyun smiles thinly. “I will definitely need a drink by then.”

Kun looks between them both. “Alright…well, I will see you then. Rest up!”

He then takes his luggage and heads towards the door that leads to the stairs, since his luxurious single room was only on the second floor.

Johnny glances down at his keycard with a sigh. They were on the 12th floor. That was 12 flights of stairs too many for him to travel alongside Jaehyun.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” Jaehyun mutters, taking Johnny by the elbow and dragging him over to the elevators. They stand together in silence, the tension between them almost tangible. 

Usually in situations like this, in conflicts, Johnny would attempt to ease things by cracking a joke or making light of things. Something to help everyone breathe a bit easier, take the pressure off of everything. Typically, it worked.

But as he gets on the elevator with Jaehyun and watches him jab at the ’12’ button, he somehow knows that it wouldn’t work. Not this time.

His next words to Jaehyun have to be the right ones.

They go from the ground floor to the second.

“Are we ever going to talk?” Johnny asks, biting the bullet.

Jaehyun inhales sharply. “Johnny…”

“You said we would today.”

Third floor.

“I need space. I still need to think.”

“Jaehyun, we can’t keep doing this all weekend. We’re supposed to be a team.”

Fourth.

“I need time.”

“We don’t have time,” Johnny says, exasperation edging into his tone.

Fifth.

“What do you mean?”

Johnny swallows. He shouldn’t have said that.

“Nothing.”

At the sixth floor, the doors open to reveal a woman. She looks at the two of them, then steps back and beckons for them to keep going. Like she knew she shouldn’t interrupt.

Johnny wishes she did when Jaehyun repeats, “What do you mean, Johnny?”

“I…Kun fired me.”

“What?” Jaehyun whispers in disbelief. “What?!”

“After this trip, I’m done. I have to leave Neo. For good.”

The seventh floor, eighth floor, and ninth pass without words.

On the tenth, Jaehyun lets out a sad chuckle. It resonates in the confined space of the elevator.

“That’s what that day was about,” he realizes. “When I found you in your car, with the cigarettes.”

“Yeah,” Johnny admits, quietly.

“You got fired,” Jaehyun says, “and you didn’t tell me.”

Eleventh floor.

“I didn’t want to let this ruin our project,” Johnny tries to defend himself. “And I was so ashamed. You had so much faith in me, Jaehyun…I couldn’t let you know that I’d failed.”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “Another thing you kept from me. How many secrets are you hiding, exactly?”

“I’m sorry, Jaehyun. I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Johnny.”

Twelfth.

The elevator doors slide open, and Jaehyun scrambles to get off first, Johnny following closely behind.

“Jaehyun, just listen—”

“What do you think ‘I don’t want to hear it’ means?” he asks, increasing his stride as they walk down the corridor.

Johnny keeps pace with him easily, and reaches forward to grasp at his elbow. “Jaehyun, please—”

Jaehyun stops in his tracks and whips around, eyes filled with fiery rage.

“What, Johnny,” he says more than asks. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to listen to me,” Johnny says lowly.

Jaehyun scoffs. “Oh yeah, and listen to more lies? More bullshit? No thanks.” He shrugs out of Johnny’s grasp, and tries to keep going forward.

Johnny lunges forward and grabs at his hand. 

“I need you to understand,” he implores. “Please.”

“Let go of me.”

“I lied to you because I was trying to protect you. Because I care about you,” he explains. “I know it’s shitty, and I know it might not make sense—”

Jaehyun closes his eyes, and says, patiently, “Johnny. Let me go.”

“—but I didn’t want to ruin your life, Jaehyun. I wanted you to succeed on this project, and not focus on me getting fired. You wouldn’t have finished it out as well as you did if you knew it was all for nothing. And with Lucas…I thought you were in love, and I wanted you to have that, too.”

“God, just let go of me!” Jaehyun shouts, tearing his hand away from Johnny’s. He turns and hurries towards their room, finally reaching the door.

Johnny follows. “Jaehyun, can you please just let me finish?”

“I listened to you,” the younger man replies, inserting the keycard into the door.

“And?”

Jaehyun looks up at him. “I know your intentions were good, Johnny. I know that. But you never actually considered _me_ in all those scenarios.”

Johnny blinks at him. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe you would’ve ruined my life,” Jaehyun laughs humorlessly. “But did you ever consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, I _wanted_ you to ruin my life? Hell, I still do. I would still let you ruin it all.”

“I don’t…” Johnny frowns in confusion. “What?”

“I mean I want you, Johnny. I want you and the good, the bad, the ugly. I want you, all of you,” he confesses. “I’ve wanted you since the moment we met, but…"

“But?”

“It’s like you don’t want me to want you. You keep trying and trying to push me away, even though you say you want me, and I…I can’t keep doing this, Johnny. I can’t keep waiting for someone who won’t let me in.”

They stand there in the hallway, silent for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny whispers, staring at the patterned carpet underneath them. “I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m trying to figure it out.”

“I know,” Jaehyun smiles sadly. 

“I’m trying to get better…at this, at saying how I feel.”

“I know.”

“The truth is,” Johnny squeezes his eyes shut, “I’m scared to let you in. I’m terrified, even if I want you. And I do want you, Jaehyun, I really do. I’m just…I’m scared. I wake up every morning, and I hate what I wake up to. I hate waking up to go to a job I’m no good at. I hate how I always feel out of place. I hate that I feel like everything I do is wrong, even if I’m only breathing or holding my pen a certain way. I hate it, I hate myself…and I’m terrified that if I let you in, you’ll wake up one day, and look at me, and see what I see—a giant mistake, a waste of fucking space.”  


Jaehyun steps forward, and presses a hand to Johnny’s cheek, brushing away a tear that’s somehow fallen down his face.

“Maybe that sounds irrational and melodramatic,” Johnny mentally cringes at himself, “but it’s the truth. I don’t want you to grow to hate me the way I hate me. I don’t want you to hate me if I can’t change my ways. Really, I’m an easy person to hate. You already probably hate me for lying to you, but—”

“Johnny.”

“—I swear I’m telling the truth now, Jaehyun, believe me.”

“I believe you,” Jaehyun promises. “Take a deep breath, John.”

Johnny does.

“Good,” Jaehyun smiles, moving to take Johnny’s hands in his now. “Now you have to promise to believe what I’m about to say, okay?”

He nods, trying to keep breathing.

“I’m scared to let you in, too. I don’t let people in easily, because I used to hate myself too—everything from my appearance to the way my voice sounded when I talked. I never let people in because I didn’t want them to know how insecure I was,” Jaehyun reveals. “I was never able to own up to it, not in the way you have, Johnny. I buried it all, kept it to myself. I never would have sought help so early on, like you did.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Jaehyun continues, “that you’re already on the right track. You’re already trying to change for the better, and I can tell that you’re improving everyday. This—what you’re going through, what your brain tells you that you are—is not who you are.”

Johnny feels a bit lighter at the words, and squeezes Jaehyun’s hands in silent gratitude for it.

“The Johnny that I see is a good person, who cares so deeply about the people around him that he’ll sacrifice anything for them,” Jaehyun says. “He is kind, funny, and makes you feel special. Like you’re worth something. That’s who I see, and I could never hate him. I could never hate you, Johnny. Never.”

Jaehyun looks up at him with his pretty eyes, and it sends him back to just a few nights ago, the single, bruising kiss and collapsed dominos. But this was not that.

Johnny carefully takes Jaehyun’s face into his hands, cupping it like it was sacred. He breathes in shakily, unafraid of igniting the spark between them, this time.

“Johnny,” Jaehyun whispers into the small space between them.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, gaze trained on the plush lips he so desperately longs to taste again.

“Yes.”

Johnny leans in and lets the spark turn into a flame, kissing Jaehyun the way he should’ve all this time. He wants to leave his lips so red and inflamed that neither of them could forget that this happened, that it won’t disappear to ash the next morning.

Jaehyun seems to understand, and kisses him back just as passionately, fingers entangling in Johnny’s dark hair.

Then, the younger man snakes a hand behind himself to open their hotel room door, and leads them inside, backwards.

Jaehyun leads Johnny all the way to the bed in the middle of the room, pressing kisses down Johnny’s jawline, down his neck. He then sits on the edge of the bed, and looks up at Johnny through his long lashes, those dark, pretty eyes only further fanning the flames.

“Johnny,” he murmurs, gripping at the hem of the older man’s shirt, “I want you.”

“So do I.”

“Then have me,” Jaehyun says, lying back against the pillows.

So, he does.

The flame between him and Jaehyun grows into a strong fire.

Though he may be burned, he doesn’t care about the risk. It may diminish at times, but they would keep it from going out. They’d just keep building it, keep the fire alive.

Their fire was lasting. That much, Johnny was sure of.

—

Johnny has never felt so at peace in his life, lying there with the man he was certain he was falling for. Or maybe, he’d already fallen some time ago.

All he knows is that Jaehyun’s propped up against the pillows, next to him, and is gently playing with his hair. He knows he hasn’t been this happy in a long, long time.

“You’re really pretty, you know,” Johnny murmurs, eyes shut as he basks in the afterglow of the fire they’d made.

Jaehyun laughs, then presses his lips to Johnny’s forehead. “Thanks. So are you.”

He lets his eyes flutter open to look up at the younger man. “Your voice is pretty, too. It’s soothing, and deep. I like it a lot.”

“Johnny…you don’t have to do that,” Jaehyun says, hand squeezing at his bicep. “I’m not who I was back then. I like myself now, I’m okay. I know my worth.”

“I know,” he shrugs. “But it’s nice to be reminded, so I’m reminding you.”

Jaehyun smiles at that. “Thank you.”

“I like you so much,” Johnny whispers, reaching up to brush a stray strand of hair away from Jaehyun’s face.

The younger man’s eyes flicker with something Johnny can’t pinpoint, and he looks almost…hesitant for a moment.

“I know I should’ve told you that a long time ago,” he adds, trying to put him at ease. “I’m sorry.”

The flicker is gone as quickly as it came. “No, don’t apologize,” Jaehyun shakes his head, and kisses at Johnny’s inner wrist. “You’re telling me now, and that’s enough.”

Jaehyun leans down to kiss him, and they make out for several minutes, until there’s a buzzing sound on the bedside table.

“Shit,” Jaehyun mutters as he pulls away to look at his phone. “It’s Kun. He wants to meet for drinks downstairs in five.”

Johnny lets his head fall back against the pillows. “Fuck. Hand me my pants.”

“Are you sure you wanna have drinks with him? We could always cancel.”

As he stretches forward to swipe his shirt off the floor, Johnny frowns in confusion. “Why? I kind of want to see what they have here. The bar looked nice.”

“No, I just mean…well, he fired you, Johnny.”

“Yeah, and?”

“I wouldn’t want to sit and have drinks with someone who fired me,” Jaehyun shrugs, tossing Johnny his pants as he tugs his shirt on. “I mean, aren’t you mad at him?”

“I was, but I understand,” Johnny says, picking his belt up. “He’s doing what’s best for the company, and I was never cut out for sales. It’s whatever.”

Jaehyun nods and doesn’t say anything more. They finish getting dressed in silence and in record time, hurrying out the door to get to the elevator before Kun wonders what’s taking them so long.

The branch manager is already sitting at the bar when they arrive, perk of his room being on the second floor.

“Ah, there you two are,” Kun says, drink already in hand. He raises it in greeting. “How’s the twelfth floor treating you?”

“It’s actually great,” Johnny says, exchanging a smile with Jaehyun as they take the two empty seats next to Kun. “Sorry for making a scene about it earlier.”  


“See? Everything works out for the best,” Kun smiles. “Let me buy you two a drink.”

While Kun grabs the bartender’s attention and orders two drinks, Jaehyun tugs at Johnny’s sleeve and whispers in his ear.

“Okay seriously, how are you not mad at him?”

“I let it go,” Johnny raises an eyebrow at him. “Is that a problem?”

Jaehyun scowls. “No, it’s just…I am. I’m mad at him.”

That surprises Johnny. “What? Why?”

“He’s firing you, Johnny. How am I supposed to go to work without you? You were half the reason I showed up, sometimes.”

Johnny laughs, gently resting his hand on Jaehyun’s lower back. “Aw, that’s cute. You’re gonna miss me.”

“No,” Jaehyun grumbles, unconvincingly. “It’s just the principle of the matter. You’re a great employee, and it’d be a waste to see you go, is all.”

“Uh huh,” Johnny smirks. “My sales track record says otherwise, Hyun.”

Kun turns back to face them, and Johnny promptly takes his hand off of Jaehyun.

“So, let’s talk about the presentation, then?”

After nearly half an hour of conversing with Kun over vodka tonics, Johnny thinks that Jaehyun lets the whole thing go, that he’s no longer angry.

And yet, three drinks in, Jaehyun goes:

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he slams his glass down onto its coaster and stares Kun down. “You can’t fire Johnny.”  


“Jaehyun,” Johnny mutters, staring down at his drink instead of looking at either of the men he was stuck between.

Kun blinks in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“He’s, uh, had a bit to drink…”

“Don’t fire him,” Jaehyun begs. “He’s an asset to this branch. He contributed to majority of this project! He was the creative behind it all, not me.”

“Mr. Jung,” Kun says, slipping into professionalism with ease, “I did not make this decision lightly. A number of factors went into it, and one project, unfortunately, cannot change my mind.”

“But you made a deal,” Jaehyun counters. “What if we win tomorrow? Does that mean nothing?”

Their boss slash former boss sighs. “Johnny and I have already discussed the matter of his termination, Mr. Jung. The project is just…him finishing out the last of his tasks. The sales numbers just weren’t where they needed to be, and that’s that. Besides, he needs to explore his potential in other areas.”

“This isn’t fair.”

Johnny tries to catch Jaehyun’s eye, but he keeps looking past him, at Kun. “Jaehyun, seriously,” he insists. “It’s fine. I’m okay with it.”

“But I’m not,” Jaehyun says, looking at Johnny now. “Without you, I…” 

“You can work without me, Jaehyun."

Jaehyun’s gaze drifts to the counter, and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I…I apologize, Mr. Qian,” he lifts his head, shooting Kun a sad smile. “I think I had too much to drink after all, please excuse my behavior.”

“It’s alright, Jaehyun,” Kun says breezily. “No need to apologize.”

“Right,” he sighs, and downs the last of his drink before he stands. “I think I need to go get some rest. You two should stay and enjoy your evening. I’ll see you upstairs, Johnny.”

Jaehyun walks out of the bar, shoulders sagging as he goes.

“I’m sorry about that,” Johnny says, turning back to him as soon as Jaehyun disappears from view. “He just found out about it today, and he’s not taking it well.”

“You two are close, I understand. Again, no need to apologize,” Kun shrugs, smile easy on his face. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do after all this?”

Johnny sighs, swirling his glass around, like the main character of a movie. “I have no idea. Not sales?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll find you when the time is right.”

Their chat ends a few minutes later, when Kun’s phone lights up with a photo that looks an awful lot like Ten and his terribly loud ringtone goes off.

Johnny doesn’t mind, though, since he needs to go check on Jaehyun anyways. He bids his former boss a good night, and makes a beeline towards the nearest elevators.

“Jaehyun? Hyunnie?” he whispers when he enters their room.

He gets no response, because Jaehyun is already asleep, back facing Johnny when he nears.

Johnny undresses, and slots into the empty space behind Jaehyun. He wraps his arms around the younger man’s waist, and plants a kiss on his shoulder.

“Good night,” he whispers, just in case Jaehyun hears, and falls into the best sleep he’s had in ages.

—

When he wakes up, the first thing Johnny is aware of is the lack of Jaehyun in his arms.

“Get up, our time got pushed up,” a frantic voice calls out from the bathroom.  
  
Johnny groggily rubs at his eyes, then groans as he stretches out his limbs. He’s a bit sore from yesterday’s activities, but it’s probably nothing compared to what Jaehyun’s feeling. He almost opens his mouth to ask about it, when a pillow collides with his face.

He shoves the pillow away to glare at the thrower, who’s standing in the doorway, toothbrush in hand and hair sticking up in a million directions.

“Get. Up,” Jaehyun commands, then sticks his toothbrush into his mouth and trudges back to the bathroom.

Today was going to be a long day, Johnny thinks. Still, he rolls out of bed before he can get hit by another pillow.

When they get in the car to head to Neo, Johnny tries. He even places a hand on Jaehyun’s thigh.

“Do you want to talk about last night?” he asks, referring to the whole Kun thing. “What was that all about?”

“Not now, Johnny,” Jaehyun sighs, moving his leg away from Johnny’s touch. “Later.”

So, they don’t talk about it. They spend the entire ride in silence. And the elevator ride up to the advertising floor of the Neo building. And when they’re waiting in line for their turn to present. They don’t talk.

When they’re next to go, Johnny can’t help himself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” he asks, shoving his shaky hands into his pockets. “It might, I don’t know, help? Get it all out there.”

Jaehyun continues flipping through his notecards. “After, Johnny. Focus on what we’re about to do.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he sighs defeatedly. “I’m just nervous.”

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Jaehyun reassures, flashing him a small smile before he goes back to the notecards.

Johnny wishes he could believe him, but he just can’t. He was a nervous wreck.

What if Jaehyun regrets it? What if he realized that he _can_ work without Johnny? That he doesn't need him in his life after all? 

“Suh Johnny and Jung Jaehyun? You’re up.”

Johnny takes a deep breath, and follows Jaehyun into the conference room, mentally bracing himself for the worst.

“Please, begin.”

Surprisingly, the presentation goes off without a hitch. Mostly thanks to Jaehyun, but without a hitch nevertheless.

It goes so well that Johnny nearly forgets to be nervous, even charming their audience with a few jokes here and there. He and Jaehyun bounce off each other with ease, going from one talking point to the next seamlessly. 

He remembers to be nervous when Jaehyun hits play on the video Johnny spent a full week editing, trying to make it look just right. He wanted it to be perfect, it was his first film project since uni, after all.

Johnny feels his hands start to shake again. 

And then, Jaehyun reaches out and takes Johnny’s left hand in his right, intertwining their fingers.

“It’s beautiful,” Jaehyun whispers, watching Lucas lift Joy with ease, the two of them twirling and swaying about gracefully. His eyes soften with wonder, the flickering on the screen making his skin glow in the dark.

“It is,” Johnny whispers back, gaze never leaving Jaehyun.

The ad ends along with the moment, and Jaehyun squeezes Johnny’s hand once, before pulling away and going back into professional mode.

They wrap up the presentation, smiling politely at everyone in the room before they bow and exit swiftly. Jaehyun’s beaming at him when they go back out into the hallway.

“We did it,” he grins. “It’s finally over.”

“Yeah, we did it,” Johnny smiles, then lets his face fall. “Jaehyun, about last night…”

Jaehyun sighs, and muttering a, “So impatient,” beneath his breath, as he drags Johnny out of the hallway full of fellow Neo employees and into an empty corridor.

“Okay. I kind of freaked out last night,” Jaehyun confesses in a hushed voice, when they’re alone.

“Because we had sex?”

“What?!” Jaehyun blinks. “No, Johnny, because…I realized something, when you said I could work without you. I…don’t think I can? Well, I mean, obviously I _can_ in a literal sense, but more like, I don’t want to?”

Johnny places his hands on Jaehyun’s shoulders. “Hyun, slow down. Just tell me what you want.”

“What I’m saying is,” Jaehyun huffs, “that I want you in my life. So I need you to tell me—what are we, exactly? What are we doing here, Johnny? I need to know before you potentially leave forever.”

“Well, for starters, I’m not leaving you,” he says. “And I’ll be whatever you want me to be, for as long as you want to be, but…I’d really like it if I could call you my boyfriend. Someday. If you want. No pressure, or anything.”  


Jaehyun places his hand overtop of Johnny’s, and lets his glorious dimple reveal itself.  


“How about you call me your boyfriend now?”

Johnny’s eyes widen—comically, if Jaehyun’s laughter is anything to go by—and he tightens his hold on the younger man’s shoulders. “Really?”

“If you want,” Jaehyun teases. “No pressure, or anything.”

“Wow, mocking me?” Johnny tries to suppress a smile. “Some boyfriend you are.”

“Shut up and kiss me, John, before I quit being your boyfriend already.”

Johnny laughs, already leaning in to capture Jaehyun’s lips in his.

His boyfriend, Jaehyun.

He liked the sound of that.

—

At the end of the day, they find out that, out of all the other branches, they placed second in the competition.

Johnny had expected to be more upset by the loss, but he’s not.

They get a smaller cash prize compared to the first place winners, so that’s a win. And the president of Neo stops to shake his hand, telling him that he admired Johnny’s work on the filmed ad, that he had a real talent, and should put it to use—another win.

But the best win, the real victory of it all is being able to make love and fall asleep next to his project partner, former co-worker, and now, boyfriend.

Though they lost, Johnny still owes this dumb competition everything, because he got to know Jaehyun through it. Because of it, he was able to crack open the shell of himself and uncover the innermost things he’d hidden away, the wonderful things and the painful things.

Because of this project, he was the one who got to wake up and be with Jung Jaehyun, and he feels like a winner because of it.

—

On their plane to go back home, their seats are right next to each other. Just like always.

Funny how, in the beginning, he resented the idea of anyone filling the empty spot next to him. Now, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to go on without Jaehyun beside him everyday.

Before he can overthink about the meaning of that, Jaehyun leans his head on Johnny’s shoulder, looping his arm through his so that they can hold hands against the armrest.

If Kun notices or minds, he doesn’t say anything.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jaehyun murmurs to him, rubbing circles onto the back of Johnny’s palm with his thumb. “I can help you edit your resume, and we can practice job interviews.”

“Hyunnie, stop worrying about me.”

“I can’t,” his boyfriend pouts up at him. “I know how much your career means to you, Johnny.”

Johnny leans his head against Jaehyun’s. “Everything happens for a reason, right? I’ll figure something out. Don’t worry.”

—

It takes months of working small, part-time jobs before Johnny figures it all out:

He should be working behind a camera, not a counter or cash register.

He registers for film and photography classes, and waits tables at two different restaurants in the meantime, to pay for rent and therapy.

Only rent gets kind of high, so Jaehyun suggests that they move in together.

“It solves the rent issue,” his boyfriend had said, “and you’re here almost all the time anyways. It’ll be fun. We’ll be like roommates!”

Johnny smirked, at the time. “Roommates who do this?”

And then he proceeded to slip his tongue into Jaehyun’s mouth.

When he finishes his classes, he starts submitting his resume to various studios and programs, both television and film. While he waits, he keeps up his waiter jobs to earn cash. 

(And sometimes, Jaehyun slips a few won into his wallet. He pretends not to notice it, but thanks his boyfriend for his generosity by giving him the bigger portions at dinner, or letting him finish first.)

He receives a lot of ‘no’s during this time. But when he receives his first ‘yes,’ it’s for a major project with a rising drama director, and Johnny couldn’t be more thrilled to accept the job.

They celebrate by going out to dinner with Mark, who proclaims, “I always knew you’d hit it big, hyung!” several times throughout the night. Jaehyun simply laughs, gazing fondly at Johnny behind the rim of his wine glass.

And when they go home that night, they celebrate…more accordingly.

“Wow,” Jaehyun gasps, flopping onto his back on his side of the bed. “Fuck.”

Johnny smirks, pressing a kiss to his lips before he lets his tired body collapse against the bed. “That good?”

“Yeah,” he says, turning his head to face him. “I’m really proud of you, y’know.”

“I know,” Johnny smiles. “You’re my number one supporter, after all.”

His boyfriend goes quiet.

“I have to tell you something,” Jaehyun sits up, sheets falling to his waist, mouth pressed into a serious line.

“Okay?” Johnny questions. “What is it?”

Jaehyun inhales deeply, shutting his eyes.

“Lucas and I broke up because we were both in love with other people."

Johnny lets out a soft laugh. “I know. You already told me that, Hyunnie.”

“No, you’re not…”  Jaehyun trails off, huffing in frustration. “He’s in love with Xiaojun—"

“Again, Jaehyun, I know all of this,” he tilts his head in confusion. “Why are you bringing it up?”

“Oh my god,” Jaehyun groans. “I’m in love with you. That’s what I wanted to tell you. If you’d just—”

Johnny rushes forward, and nearly knocks his teeth against Jaehyun’s as he kisses him, hard.

“You’re in love with me?” Johnny asks breathlessly when they part.

“Yes,” Jaehyun replies, lips brushing against Johnny’s when he speaks. “If you listened to what I said in the first place, you would’ve figured it out soone—“

Johnny shuts him up with his lips.

“I’m in love with you, too.”

Jaehyun grins, and Johnny’s so happy he could just kiss his dimple. “Wow. Who’d have thought the guy who despised me would love me back?”

“Shut up,” Johnny groans, poking him in the side. “I did not despise you. It was just...misplaced hatred. Denial, if you will. Some of us have emotional issues, y’know.”

Jaehyun sidles up to his side again, resting his head on his chest. “If only I’d known. I never would have attempted to ask you out if I knew you hated me.”

Johnny cranes his neck to shoot him a bewildered look. “What are you talking about?”

“Uh, that time I tried to ask you out? With, like, wine lessons?” Jaehyun laughs and reaches up to pinch one of his bright red earlobes. “God, that was embarrassing. I couldn’t even blame you for rejecting me then, because that line was god awful."

“Oh my god,” Johnny mutters, staring at the ceiling in disbelief. “You were trying to ask me out.”

“Yeah?” Jaehyun asks, then laughs. “What, did you not know or something?”

Johnny doesn’t respond, and Jaehyun shifts his head to look up at him.

“Oh my god,” Johnny winces at his boyfriend’s sharp tone. "You didn’t know I was asking you out?!"

“I thought you were just trying to show off!”

“Show off? About what?!”

“Wine…knowledge?” Johnny answers sheepishly.

“You’re kidding me,” Jaehyun grumbles. “Now it all makes sense.”

“To be fair, it was a pretty awful attempt to ask someone out. Very vague,” he muses.

Jaehyun flicks at the twisting vines tattooed on his shoulder. “I was trying, okay! It was my first time making the first move on anyone.”

Johnny gasps mockingly. “Are you saying…I was your first?”

“Shut up,” Jaehyun whines. “Yes.”

“I think it’s sweet,” he smiles, bending down to press a kiss against his hairline. “My sweet little Hyunnie, risking it all to make the first move on me."

“Stop it,” the younger man whines again. He feels Jaehyun shrug against him. “I just knew I had to have you, I guess. I had to do whatever it took. Even after you rejected me that day, I still felt the same.”

Johnny’s smile widens. “Stubborn ass.”

“Oh, and look where my stubborn ass got us, hm?” Jaehyun asks, sliding one of his bare legs against Johnny’s to emphasize his point.

“I know, I know,” Johnny surrenders easily. “I’m grateful for you and your stubborn ass. And your ass in general, really.”

“You always know just what to say,” Jaehyun retorts sarcastically, and Johnny lets out a laugh that echoes off their bedroom walls, further filling the room with warmth.

“I love you,” he murmurs fondly, carding a hand through Jaehyun’s hair. “I love you so much, Hyunnie.”

“I love you too, Johnny,” he murmurs back. “And hey.”

“Hm?”

“You’re my favorite person in the whole world,” Jaehyun sighs happily, tracing his fingertips against the sunflower on Johnny’s arm. “Just thought I would remind you, since it’s nice to be reminded.”

Johnny pulls him a bit closer, holds him a bit tighter, and feels complete, utter happiness spread throughout his body, like a wildfire.

“You’re my favorite person, too,” Johnny murmurs, kissing Jaehyun’s forehead gently.

And as he falls asleep with Jaehyun in his arms, he makes a silent vow to never let the fire die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh I hope this was a satisfying end for you all!! any and all feedback is always appreciated, thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> johnjae may be absolute wrecks but they're each other's absolute wrecks <33
> 
> places you can find me:  
> twt: [@mediumsuh](https://twitter.com/mediumsuh)  
> tumblr: [thatfangirlingfreak](https://thatfangirlingfreak.tumblr.com/)  
> curiouscat: [infinitywarmth](https://curiouscat.me/infinitywarmth)


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